


And a Planet Wandered In

by ilyena_sylph, Merfilly



Category: Transformers (Bay Movies), Transformers Generation One
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Ensemble Cast, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-04-01
Updated: 2012-04-01
Packaged: 2017-11-02 21:37:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 52,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/373602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilyena_sylph/pseuds/ilyena_sylph, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>BayVerse Humans (Mostly, with some guests from other canons) meet the G1 'Bots and 'Cons. New dynamics ensue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sleepy Planet Waking Up

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. This was begun some time ago, and may eventually be finished if the muses will behave.
> 
> 2\. We were told we had made a mistake between Rewind and Eject... and we decided to keep it as was, a slight homage to the Rumble and Frenzy debate.

Laserbeak dove within the Decepticon base, wings flaring wide as he settled onto Megatron's extended arm, red optics blazing bright with excitement as he shifted from one set of talons to the other. Soundwave had remained outside Iacon, with Ravage serving as his eyes and ears, but Laserbeak was capable of communicating with their leader without Soundwave's presence. He shifted into data-disk form, and was placed into the main computer bank. He flicked up the image of a pair of Autobots leaving Iacon, heading towards the southwestern part of the planet, as Soundwave's recording came across the image. "Megatron. Intruders. Assumption: energy hunters. Target of opportunity. Secondary assumption: Autobots require power for unknown project."

"They seek to usurp the way things should be, Mighty Megatron, stealing away the energy that is rightfully ours," Starscream said in his nasal croon, the one he used when he wanted to prod and annoy Megatron.

"Starscream, there are moments your talent for stating the obvious is more vexing than amusing," Megatron told him, his tone sharp as a razor's edge. "Take your Seekers and _find_ them, stop them. Whatever energy they have managed to steal, acquire for us instead." He waited for his most irritating lieutenant to answer, already calculating how to answer that second thought of Soundwave’s. One of the other Seeker trines, the Constructicons to breach the outer walls perhaps; yes, that would do nicely.

"As you wish, Lord Megatron," Starscream said in unctuous tones, before snapping at Skywarp and Thundercracker to attend him.

Megatron watched him leave, then turned to Shockwave, delivering his orders for Dirge and his trine, Scrapper and the other Constructicons, others. If Prime was planning something, Megatron meant to stop him. This energy-draining rebellion against what Cybertron should be had gone on more than long enough.

`~`~`~`~`

Everything was on the verge of being fully ready, they just needed that little bit more of energy in order to make the launch. Optimus had faith in his people, was sure this would go well -- and then the world exploded near him.

Before he truly knew what was happening around him on more than an instinctive level, he was calling orders, sending Ironhide to where Devastator was battering at Iacon's walls, rallying the smaller ones under his command into pairs and trios. He could see Megatron in the skies, but the battlefield was conspiring to keep them separate.

The Seekers! They were targeting the launch pad, and its ship waiting to take them away! Fools! Surely Megatron had to know that energy was needed, that they were doomed without a new source! Was his war blinding him to the simple fact Cybertron was dying?

This was not the first time he had thought the gunformer insane, however this seemed beyond even his usual madness. He kept attempting to reach Megatron, but he was continually pulled aside by the need of his smaller fighters, aiding and guarding them until they could find their footing again. Brawn and Chromia seemed to be holding their own against Megatron, working in a solid tandem, while Jazz and his team hit back against the Seekers.

Even though they were holding for now, the situation was growing more precarious by the minute. When the rumble of the ground based Constructicons was heard within the walls, Optimus realized they had very little time to get free of the platform and ship, which could not launch so low on energy, or too many mechs' lives would be lost.

He despised the idea of abandoning Iacon to the Decepticons, but no territory was worth the lives of his people. Their only chance was to go into the undercity, where the Seekers would not follow and the Constructicons would have difficulty maneuvering. So would he, but he was accustomed to it and they were not. He called the order to fall back, holding against the Decepticon forces until enough of his own had made it away. Elita-1's voice called out in his radio transmitter, and he turned to join them, making his retreat, his spark heavy.

"Prime... Bumblebee and Wheeljack never called back in," Blaster informed him over the transmitter. "Starscream and his trine were not in the battle."

"...We will have to hope that they managed to escape them," Optimus returned, as he made his longer way down into their fallback base. "Bumblebee is skilled in evasion. Keep listening for them, Blaster."

"I will, Optimus. I promise." Blaster kept his audios wide open as the smaller Autobots went deep into the undercity, frustrating the Decepticon pursuit.

*~*~*

It took nearly a full cycle before they managed to regroup. More than a few of his Autobots were being carried by their allies or partners, the faded tint to their colors speaking to how badly they had been drained by the battle and the retreat after, as he joined Jazz, Prowl, and Elita-1. "Status?"

Jazz shook his helm, visor glinting blue-white. "Not good, Prime. We can't repair the launch platform; the ship is not spaceworthy; we don't have enough energy to heal some of our friends."

"Speaking from a tactical point of view, Optimus, we are probably facing a major offensive against us soon, if they know how drained we are," Prowl added.

Elita-1 took a deep breath before she spoke. "I think the worst of the injured need to be secreted into stasis chambers, rather than have us use resources for healing them at this point. Until we secure an energy source, healing them will only weaken what defenses we have, but stasis will preserve them until we can aid them better."

Optimus nodded, looking at his partner for a long moment. "I believe you are correct, Elita. It will take less to power the chambers than it would to heal, and it will offer them some protection, so long as we hide them well." His gaze turned towards Prowl, then. "They must know, Prowl, or why chance us like that? Megatron brought most of the best of his force with him against us, and we did them all damage. They cannot have that much more in reserve than we did... Jazz. Stopping them above us is going to rest on you, my friend."

Jazz nodded, then looked at Elita-1, his visor shining. "Hide them in the ruins of Vos and Tarn, under the cities. It will be the last place any of the 'Cons will go."

"Too many of them survived that war with bitter memories?" Elita-1 rationalized.

Prowl kept his thinking to himself, trying to work out the best ways to secure the undercity.

Optimus left them to their planning -- between Prowl's logic and Jazz's ability with unconventional tactics, they would keep the Decepticons off them down here -- and went to check on the rest of his people.

*~*~*

Soundwave had spent a long span of time hacking the ship's databases, searching for information about the Autobots' intent, and he stalked back into the Decepticon base, his optics flickering with a displeased light. "Autobots _illogical_."

"Oh?" came the curious noise of the Seekers' self-proclaimed -- and dangerous enough to retain the title against all challengers -- leader.

"Plans negligible. Goal: find new energy. No certain course. No known location. Goal without strategy: waste of fuel."

"Indeed. What course had they selected so randomly?" the one-time explorer wished to know.

Soundwave moved to the computer terminal on this level, linking to it with sharp motions to display the intended course on a screen where the entire leadership could see.

Starscream saw that the course intended would take the ship back along Cybertron's wandering path. A vague memory filtered out of his past, of a planet rich in resources but possessing an unknown, unfathomable danger. He squelched the sentimental responses to the memories, and sneered instead. "A useless wandering, and a senseless waste of resources. Yet more proof they are intended to serve, or be destroyed!"

Soundwave's mouthplate moved for a moment before his low voice was heard. "Assessment: accurate. Autobot movements ill-advised. Desperation, or foolishness, motivates them."

"Then it is an opportune moment to strike harder, my Decepticons!" Megatron's voice cut between them at the implications in Soundwave's words.

Starscream snorted contemptuously. "They are like cyberats in a maze, Megatron! We are just as stretched on our energy resources, and you propose to run through the tunnels, instead of finding a new source for us? I say let them stay, and starve them by guarding what resources we have while we search more profitably!"

Shockwave viewed them both a long moment before hulking his form aggressively in Starscream's direction. "If we do not attack and destroy, they will merely hamper any attempts we make to procure energy for ourselves!"

"As they have for the last era," Megatron rumbled at Shockwave's words... but Starscream was not incorrect, loathe though he was to admit it. "Send some of the smaller ones to search for their hiding places, Shockwave, while we make our own search. Starscream, since apparently you have ideas on how to make that profitable, you may set a team to it."

Starscream scowled; he had not pointed out the obvious with any intent to actually work. With a sharp jerk of his wings, he gestured for his trine mates to accompany him. They didn't look too happy at the prospect either; they'd overflown Cybertron how many times now, searching for any residues?

Shockwave began mobilizing the smallest of the Decepticons, which meant requesting aid from Soundwave. One way or another, this war had to come to an end, and Shockwave intended it to be on victorious terms for his forces.

The efforts to find the Autobots cost the Decepticons dearly, as no few of the one-time domestics had a level of ingenuity that allowed them to place traps and blinds… and Starscream's attempts came to little more. Energy was becoming more scarce by the passing day, to the point that some of the hotter-headed 'Cons were blowing up at each other, steadily losing discipline.

It was only a matter of time before no one had energy to function, a point made quite clear the day Astrotrain went completely silent, incapable of making even the smallest servo move. He was too valuable to allow harm to come to him, but there was too much history among the Decepticons of raiding the bodies of their fallen. It was going to take effort to keep the triple-changer safe, effort none of them could truly afford. However, not long after Astrotrain's drop into stasis, the smallest of his forces began to disappear into Cybertron's underside -- much as the Autobots had. It was infuriating, yet at the same time, there was no other choice if they wanted to survive.

One by one, even the leadership used the last of their energy to retreat into their own strongholds within the fortress city, dropping into controlled stasis. Megatron, at the last, set all of the androids he could reprogram to collect energy and feed it to the central Decepticon computer, which held instructions for various scenarios.

*~*~*~

The wandering planet was closing in on a system it had once known, entering from an angle high above the planar orbits of the native planets. It took a good long time for it to be noted, but eventually it had slipped past the asteroids and slowed enough that no government could deny what amateurs had seen. One major reason for the notice was that the wandering body shone reflecting the sun's light in ways no natural object should, as though it were composed of mirrors. This created a complication for the use of the more powerful telescopes -- their readouts were dazzled by the light returning at them.

The United Nations were besieged by requests for the space-capable countries to investigate, especially as it was noted to be slowing, as if settling into an orbit that was about as far out as Mars, but on an elliptical retrograde.

The space-capable nations had nothing that could reach that far at the time, but they were almost immediately diverted into producing a craft that could do so, while the training of a crew to fly that kind of distance, as well as a crew to do the exploration, began in earnest.

And all the while, from deep beneath the slowly thinning ice sheets of the arctic circle, an automated signal sent faint, rare pulses out from the planet.

Two massive mainframe computers caught and translated that signal, setting up protocols, even as the planet was able to capture energy in limited availability from the primary. Once the planet itself had begun to draw energy, the computers could send the small droids on small repair missions, according to their programmed instructions. The arrival of that signal, distressed as it was, required answer, but there were no instructions programmed for such a signal now. That would require the awakening of a self-determined sentient. However, there was a limited amount of power, still. Both computers reached the logical conclusion that it would have to be one of the smallest of the forces they could reach.

The Autobot computer, Teletraan-1, made its selection, and all available energy was taken by the small repair droids to the resting place of the scout Bumblebee, where it was fed into his systems. The Decepticon computer chose to awaken a small symbiont, which would need very little power, but had skill and ability. Rumble was located, close against Soundwave's form, and the droids began to force enough power to wake him through his system again. 

It would take time, or the two Cybertronians would face halting service, and possible damage, but time was something all computers had in abundance. As the time ticked by, a small, tricky piece of code, designed by Jazz, started running, so that the Decepticon computer lost control of more and more of the harvesting droids as time went by. Jazz had foreseen the chance of waking, and made sure they would have an advantage.

*~*~*~

"Can you believe this shit?" Epps asked, looking out the ship's window at the orbital body they'd been sent to investigate. "I know they said it read metallic, but damn, that is..."

"It looks like a city. One that covers the entire... asteroid, planet, thing..." his C.O. -- no matter that the pilot, Seaton, was officially in charge, Lennox was still _his_ C.O., and C.O. of the ground team, as well -- said over his shoulder, shaking his head.

"We have a clear runway path, some debris to the sides, but large enough to set down and taxi out from," Seaton called.

"EVA team into full gear," Lennox called, "before we start setting down. Once we're down and have readings on what's out there, we start exploring."

"Roger that." The team hurried to snap helmets into place and strapped themselves into the crash seats, as the pilot and the rest of the bridge crew started the ship on the descent.

The planet took note of the approaching vehicle, wondering what language it spoke when it failed to respond. The hunter droids, however, scented the energy of the engines and began homing in.

Seaton put the ship down, amazed at how easy it was, at what he'd seen on his viewscreen as they set down. "This is _tiled_ , boys and girls... Giant, tiled sheets of whatever this metal is. We're down, we're docked, starting readings now."

The co-pilot flipped through the sensors, before taking a deep, uneasy breath. She hadn't signed up for this... "Something moving out on the outer limit of the grid."

"Look alive!" Lennox called.

"The hell can we do in here?" Epps snorted, not all that quietly, rolling his eyes behind the helmet. "Aliens? Seriously? Why did I sign up for this?"

"Because I said I needed you," Lennox reminded him. He pointed to the door. "We need to get out, in case they're hostile."

"Right, right..." //Why I listened, I don't even know,// Epps shook his head and headed for the airlock, marshaling up the rest of the team as he went.

"There's definitely atmo and gravity out there, guys, still working on analyzing just what the air is, so don't get punctured..." the co-pilot called to them.

" _Now_ she tells us?" Epps muttered, shaking his head as the lock cycled shut, and then open.

The team staged in the airlock, between door cycles, before they exited... just in time for swooping small mechanical objects to start coming in to aim for all the power sources.

Epps grinned triumphantly when it was Lennox that said, "What the _hell_?!" over their open comms first. "I don't know, but they seem like they're ignoring us to go for the ship..."

As soon as he said it, one of the other men yelled, as one attached to the thruster pack on his back. It was easily clubbed off by his partner, but the little things had the idea, now.

"You just had to say it?!" Lennox yelled, going to apply blunt force to the one he could see.

"Sor~ry!" Epps yelled back, getting to where he could knock one of the little scrambling things -- about the size of a big parrot, he decided -- off of Lennox's pack. "What are they doing?"

"They look kinda like mynocks, with the way they're going for power..." their gunner called, showing more of a trend towards geekiness than anyone would have expected by looking at him.

"Mywhat?" Andropov, the Russian of the team, asked as he clubbed another of the small things, knocking it to the ground, at least temporarily. "They are machines, it seems."

"Star Wars reference, Andropov," Lennox called. "Remind me to loan it to you." He brushed another one off the ship, before a clashing sound dragged his attention back up.

He saw a humanoid figure, deep purple and just a little taller than Shaquille O'Neill headed towards them, clanging as he-she-it came towards them. A very nasty laugh echoed in their comms on almost every frequency as its arms changed to massive pile-drivers. "Ten o'clock!" he yelled.

Epps, Andropov, and the rest of their team focused on the intruder quickly, firing shots from their sidearms in hopes of stopping it.

The shots ricocheted, seemingly without effect -- except for the way that the intruder dropped to a knee and slammed one pile-driver into the ground, sending them all staggering as the tiles bucked from the impact.

"This is _definitely_ not friendly..." Epps yelled, still shooting even as he tried to get his balance back

"You think?!" Lennox demanded, as the sound of more metal on metal erupted on their six, before a larger yellow form leaped over the shuttle, over them, and slammed into the pile-driver robot.

"He seems to like that one less than us!" Andropov pointed out.

With solid, hard hitting blows, the larger of the pair made it a point to make the smaller one know he was not going to win the fight. The little energy draining devices also took to a hover as the battle progressed, responding to some command initiated by the newcomer to the battle, or Epps would pay up his next check to someone. He could tell there was communication in the air; he just couldn't pinpoint it. Epps was right, and it was no surprise that he could not pinpoint communication that ran thousands of times faster than human speech, on wavelengths human instruments were never designed to hear. The fight was not silent.

“Back off, Rumble!” Bumblebee snapped as he fought, driving the Decepticon back from the oddly shaped, silent shuttle, and the ‘humans’ even smaller than the cassette.

“Shove it up your exhaust, Dumblebee,” the smart-mouthed punk retorted, “they got enough energy to wake Boss up on that thing, and what diff do they make? They’re not even mechs!”

"They're obviously sentient life! You need to back off before I tear you apart!" Bumblebee snapped back, pounding hard. "I want my people awake too, but this isn't the way to get it!"

“Sentient, non-sentient, whatever, they ain’t us,” Rumble retorted, but the slagging Autobot scout was really giving him a beating – he didn’t like it, not at _all_. Beating things was _his_ job, slag it! He slammed both piledrivers into Bumblebee’s chestplate in order to get enough room to break loose and take off for the nearest crevasse, flipping into cassette form to dive into it, then back out to catch hold of one of the supports some distance down, flipping around it to hit one of the sublevel streets. He could always catch one of the hunter droids…

Bumblebee shifted back from his defensive posture and took a deep huff of air to clear the dust from his vents, before he turned and looked at the humans. This was so not the way meeting new beings was supposed to go. As he looked at them, and realized they really were organic beings, he had to marvel at them. He then processed the upload from Teletraan, a translation program it had built off all the chatter in subspace.

"He~llo?" he managed.

"Shit, it talks," Epps said, soft and low.

Lennox shot a glare at his comm officer and took a couple of steps forward, looking up at the tall, yellow-gold robot. Sure, there had been jokes about what you did on First Contact all of his life, he’d grown up on Star Trek like every other kid, but the UN wasn’t Starfleet and hell if he knew what the right thing to say was. Not like he had a lot of choice about figuring it out, though. “Hello to you, too, big guy... Nice to meet you, I think.”

Bumblebee crouched down, to be closer to eye level. "I am sorry. Your ship? Is it damaged? It will not answer me."

"He thinks the shuttle's going to talk to him?" Epps asked.

"Crazier than me," Andropov told him.

“Let me check with the pilot,” Lennox said, and shifted the comm band. “How’s the ship, Seaton? Our help’s worried it’s damaged.”

The pilot came back after a few moments. “The fuel cells are a little low from the swarming little things, and we got shook up by that other one, but we’re in one piece, Major.”

Lennox nodded, and turned his attention back to the robot. “It’s not badly damaged – and you aren’t the one that should be apologizing. I’m pretty sure you just saved our hides from that other one. Thanks.”

"You will need to leave quickly, in case the Decepticons are able to bring one of their more powerful fighters online. But..." Bumblebee knew he needed help, and they were sentient. How was he going to both warn them of the dangers of the Decepticons, and get enough energy to bring Optimus or one of the other big guys online?

“Decepticons? Fighters? – wait a sec. How is it you speak English? You’re not from around here, after all.” Lennox had finally realized there was something strange going on. And he really didn’t like the sound of that name. Some kind of different title, obviously, but until they knew what it meant… “And what’s going on with the little things – those guys?” he pointed at one of the ‘mecha-mynocks’, tipping his head to the side a little.

Bumblebee caught his processors, hauled them back in line, and sat down on his aft so he could deal with these beings. "First, my name is Bumblebee, or that's the best I can tell you, based off the decoding of your language. Second, our computers have been listening to the chatter in the subspace, building a translator for us. Third, this planet was in war when we both ran out of energies. Fourth, those are hunter-droids, designed to seek energy and feed it into the processors." He dismissed them with their load, glad to have overcome Rumble's orders to them, so that they could be useful. "Hopefully there's enough to wake up one of my big guys... Rumble's too sneaky for me to think I've got a free pass just because I knocked him around."

//This is going to be hell to report,// Lennox thought, but there was too much going on to do anything but try to get it all into his head and talk to probably the strangest guy he’d ever met – because that voice was too male to say ‘it’, now. “Nice to meet you, Bumblebee. I’m Major William Lennox, these are my team: Epps, Hudson, Andropov, Rico, and Thoms. We were sent to investigate when the scientists on Earth saw this – your planet, I guess – in our telescopes.

“So... You’re going to send them to get one of your... people?, because the little creep that tried to shake us off our feet – named pretty well if that’s why you call him Rumble – is probably going to be coming back?”

Epps was as close to the front as he could get, recording everything with his helmet camera, watching things unfold. He was pretty damn sure this was a screwed up dream leftover from too much beer with the guys, but he'd go with it for now.

"I sent them to one of our strongholds, so Rumble cannot steal the energy for one of his people. And I have to decide who to wake, who will be most useful. Optimus Prime is my leader, but he's _big_. Ironhide's a good warrior, but I need someone smart enough to talk to your people. And then there's the problem of getting to your world; we're too big for your ship.... _Wait!_. Rumble would have been small enough, and Blaster's symbionts are even smaller! One of them could talk for us!"

"Which of us is going to get out and push if we take one of them?" Andropov asked idly.

“Andropov has a point, big guy,” Lennox said, shaking his head a little. “No matter how little your ‘smaller symbionts’ are, they’re probably a lot of weight – mass. Whatever. So let’s hold on a minute – why do you want to come to Earth? We’ve got an energy shortage of our own going on. I mean, it’s more we don’t know how to use some of it, but if you guys are running dry...”

"There must be energy there, as Teletraan is going crazy at the potential solutions! Surely you can't tell me a planet in stable orbit around a primary could have any kind of true energy crisis?" Bumblebee pointed out, surprised. "As for thrust to get you off Cybertron... I think I can get the hunter-droids to feed back all the energy, and I'll raid the solid fuel supplies for your burners. We only use those for jets, because they're concentrated for burning, not ingestion. Sure, Ratchet was trying to figure out a way to reverse the procedure, but we ran out of time." Bumblebee shook his head sadly. "And we want to get there, to try and find a way to trade for energy. Not to mention there's an... emergency beacon of ours going off in your polar region, a very old one."

Lennox had started to answer the earlier statements, but that last took his full attention. “There’s one of you guys on earth?”

Bumblebee nodded. "Seems to be. It's an old, old dialect, from before my creation... I came after the War started, and this is definitely a unified signal."

Lennox shook his head, trying to envision one of these somewhere on earth. How had it not been seen at some point? "So, you've had a major civil war going on... but you ran out of energy and went -- dormant? Into hibernation? What woke you up -- both of you, I guess?"

"The emergency call," Bumblebee said. "We're not in optimum scavenging position to utilize the primary, but enough was collected."

"Alright. So you've got someone on Earth that needs to come home, and you need some help with energy... but you're in the middle of a war. I'm just a soldier, but I'd bet that's going to make dealing with the politicians difficult. Although, you did help us with them, so that ought to help." Lennox wanted to rub at his temple with gloved fingers, and wasn't happy that they still had their face-plates up. 

"We have... better science," Bumblebee decided after looking the shuttle over again, taking in all the little details. "Trade that for any help we can get?" He made that offer, then shook his head, thinking. "Oh, which cassette to wake up?" He stood back up, then looked at them all. "I'm not big enough...or powered enough...to take your shuttle to the base, but I can take some of you, if you want to come?" He transformed into his hover car form, opening the hatch.

"I can't say anything about what you might trade or not, but keep thinking about the options," Lennox said, then jumped back as Bumblebee suddenly twisted and shifted and became -- a flying car? "Okay, this is officially weird," he said, very low, very quiet, "and I'm about to do something very stupid. Seaton, I'm going with our new friend here. Epps, you're with me. Andropov, Rico shift on and off out here, just in case the other one comes back. We brought a couple of heavy weapons, get them out and set."

"We did, and you are grateful now for Russian 'paranoia', da?" Andropov said, but he smiled as he did.

"Did we argue with you?" Lennox replied, shaking his head. Some had -- he and Epps hadn't. "Hey, did you ever get atmosphere readings, Seaton?"

" -- they must have finished during the fight. The air out there's got some metals in it we don't recognize, but they're microparticles. It's also got a weird balance, but it's got enough oxygen for you to breathe, guys. You can drop the face shields."

Lennox reached up, pushed the faceplate back, then unhooked the seals to push the helmet back, taking a breath of the alien air -- it smelled strange, ozone and metal. What else could this world smell like, he asked himself a moment later, half amused by his own mind as he headed towards Bumblebee's open hatch, stepping up into it, looking over his shoulder for Epps.

Epps gave him the patented 'you're a crazy-white-boy' look Lennox was long familiar with, but joined him. "Not too bad," he said, after adjusting his own helmet off his head.

Once they were both inside and seated -- //Why does the inside of a giant robot's alternative form have seats that basically work for humans?// Lennox decided right about then that there were things that he just didn't need to think about too much -- Bumblebee lifted from the ground and headed away.

Bumblebee's processors whirred one how best to do this. He needed to send an envoy; he needed to protect his people; they needed help! "Hold on, it's a little bumpy getting inside. Us small ones made the openings as small as we could once the big ones started shutting down."

Lennox reached up and grabbed on, settling in for the ride, and finally something struck him. "Wait a sec, big guy… if you get the droids to feed all the power back, how are you going to wake up anyone to come and talk for you?”

"Not all should have come from your shuttle. There should be enough... they woke me, after all... saved from our planet's journey to spark a cassette. If not... I will record what needs said, and give the cassette my energy." It was a risk, but one that had to be taken. There was a Cybertronian trapped below, someone who might, once freed, be better able to help them all.

That... didn't sound like that great an idea, not with that purple creep running around. But that Bumblebee was willing... There had to be a way around making that choice. "Weren't you talking about some way to use one of your fuel sources for our ship? If you do that, it shouldn't matter if we lose a little energy from the ship. Hadn't you better stay awake, if Rumble's out there somewhere?"

"It would be best," Bumblebee agreed. "But your planet must be warned, no matter what, of the Decepticons. And I am too large to go. I worry that the Decepticons will be getting the larger portion. They... are dangerous, and had more control of the planet than we did." Bumblebee sighed. "One way or another, we will figure this out. Prime says there's always a way."

"Funny, we say that too." He'd never thought he'd have so much in common with any kind of aliens, but so far, Bumblebee wasn't so bad. "Alright. First things first, we get your guy up and moving, right? Which ways of catching power are you using, maybe we can figure out something to help you -- I doubt it, your tech's better, but anything's possible." That would give them something to talk about for however long it took them to reach wherever they were going -- or at least part of the way.

"We aren't quite able to use radiant energy from the primary, not yet, but the collectors would have been catching it the whole journey here," Bumblebee chattered. "I'm no scientist; I'd need Wheeljack or Ratchet, I think, but they're bigger than me. Wheeljack was with me when I went dormant, but I'm not sure he's my best first choice either. He tends to have accidents that blow things up."

Epps and Lennox exchanged a glance over that; good to know the robots weren't infallible already. "What about wind? I know I felt a breeze going before I got in.."

"Air currents are energy?" Bumblebee asked.

"Smart enough to build a society and they don't know wind power?" Epps muttered.

"In our last system... before the Crash... we had very little air current motion."

"Been a long time since I worked on a windmill, but -- you're getting the Internet out here, right? Look for windmills, wind turbines -- we've made them on pretty low power for most of our history, I bet you can figure out how to rig something. You guys are obviously good with motors."

"We are at that." Bumblebee gave Teletraan some directives, praying the encryption held so that the Decepticreeps didn't hack them when they came back online. "I think we can do that!" he said once he had the diagrams in his head, skimming through a hole barely big enough for him to pass.

Lennox grabbed hold of the back of the seat a little tighter as Bumblebee tipped daringly, but managed to keep his voice steady. "Alright. So that's the next project, huh?"

***

Bumblebee finally reached Blaster's slumped form, and pulled to a stop next to him. "Everybody out, please," he said through his speakers even as he flicked his doors open.

Lennox and Epps moved quickly, looking at the mechanical form lying still that was bigger than their rescuer. "A whole world of robots," Epps said with a low tone. "Dudes at NASA are going to piss themselves."

"Some of our scientific types are going to go into processor overload at the idea of organics with true sentience," Bumblebee replied with a half-laugh, transforming back into 'bot to plant his hands on his hips and give his old friend a long look. "Okay, Blaster... sorry about this, buddy." He moved enough to get to his old friend's chest, and started carefully working at the release-plate.

Blaster was inert, completely, but the chest was able to be opened, revealing the fold-space compartment behind it. Bumblebee worked slowly, carefully, coaxing out one of the symbionts, and then frowning. "You won't do."

"...what is that?" Lennox asked, his head tipping to the side as he looked up at the disk held in Bumblebee's hands.

"One of the microbots that functions in specialized fashions, bonded to Blaster since creation," Bumblebee said. Steeljaw was a good fighter and a good scout, but he would be little help here.

"Why won't it do?" Epps asked.

"He doesn't speak." Bumblebee turned his attention to trying to coax out one of the others.

"Pretty good reason," Lennox agreed, nodding as he watched Bumbleebee work.

Finally, Bumblebee had the blue-and-yellow disk of Rewind in his hands, and he summoned a couple of the hunter-droids to him. Once they arrived, he transferred the load of energy from one, and then both, into the small symbiont. He twitched, flexed, and jumped from his hands, transforming into his -- human-sized, he noticed with amusement -- robot form with his small gun already snapped up, clicking and hissing in very unhappy Cybertronian, "What in _Primus's name_ , what's wrong with Blaster what'm I doing online?"

"Easy, Rewind. Easy." Bumblebee remained crouched down to be closer to the small one's size. "We have problems. Cybertron went into a system that has sentients, and I need someone to talk to them, about the Decepticon threat, about... oh here!" The scout downloaded the events from the time he woke until now into Rewind.

"Nnn..." Rewind protested the sudden upload for a moment, but then seized upon the translation data, filing it all into his capacious memory banks. "Eject's gonna _love_ this, once we get everyone online again..." he looked up sadly at Blaster's inert form, reaching out to pat at one footplate worriedly. "Get Steeljaw back _in_ there, would you? He shouldn't be out here if he's not awake."

Once his fellow symbiont was safely back inside, Rewind turned towards the pair of humans, speaking in their 'English'. "Heya, guys. I'm Rewind, and it's niceta meetcha."

"I had planned to!" Bumblebee protested as he did put Steeljaw back in the fold-space, before closing the plate, and resting a hand on Blaster's helm for a long moment.

It was seeing those affectionate signs, as boggling as it was, that finally set Lennox firmly in the mindset of 'these guys are the good guys'. It was all too familiar to him, from his days of being in small, tight-knit teams. "Rewind, huh? I'm Lennox, he's Epps, and this is all freaky, but we're rolling with it as we go."

"That's all y'can do, sometimes," Rewind agreed, as he came over enough to put a hand out to shake. It was kind of nice to have somebody around that wasn't four times his size! At the same time as he came over, he was reaching out to the unending stream of broadcast data -- Teletraan's translation program was a good one, but there was so much _information_ out there just waiting. "Bumblebee, with Rumble up and running, it's not gonna be long before Mister Monotone's stalking his big aft around..."

"Yeah I know! We're going to jury rig some...wind turbines, try to get someone up and running. I was thinking I'd love to have Ironhide...yeah, go figure...but I need someone smart too, so maybe Ratchet?" Bumblebee rattled off at Rewind.

"Maybe. He ain' got much for firepower, but if anybody can get stuff running to max -- without it blowing up and taking power we ain't got to spare -- it's Ratchet." Rewind clicked and considered, hand propped under his jawplate. "Yeah. Sounds good. You got any idea what you want me to say, down there on Earth?"

"They have to understand the threat of the Decepticons. So talk about that. And find out who is sending the signal up to us. That's old, old unified code if Teletraan hasn't popped a circuit." Both heard the indignant response to that in stuffy binary, making Bee grin.

"Awright. I can do _that_ , for sure. So. Heard from you we're not taking off yet, guess we'd better get started on those wind things... Hm -- whaddya think, up around Iacon's dome?"

"I don't know... I wish I knew better where Megadork went to ground at, to be safe," Bumblebee said, "But that sounds as good as any." He then looked at the humans, who couldn't really process their language at the speeds they used. "Hey, we're going to head back, get everything started, okay? I can handle both of you and Rewind, but it will be a little cramped."

"Alright," Lennox nodded, waiting -- he was starting to 'hear' the bots' language a little, but he didn't think any set of human ears was ever really going to understand it. 

Rewind snorted up at him. "So I transform back, 'Bee. It'll be just fine."

"Didn't know if you wanted to keep chattering at them, Spark-Head," Bumblebee teased lightly. He moved a little and shifted back to his vehicle mode. "Hop in, guys!"

Epps started snickering a little at the ludicrous thought in his head, and had to share it. "Hey, Lennox, if all the cars back home did this, we wouldn't get parking tickets. They'd have to get them for loitering."

Lennox laughed, shaking his head as he stepped back inside Bumblebee. He turned to put a hand out to Rewind, who grinned widely. "Thanks, don't mind if I do," he said and switched forms, disk dropping perfectly into the outstretched hand.

Epps shook his head at that, but hey, Lennox was the one who had to write the reports, not him.

Lennox had to stare at the disk in his hand for a minute, but he brought him on into the cab, settling down with the disk next to him as Bumblebee flicked his doors shut and headed back towards the shuttle.

*~*~

Rumble made his way to the levels where the hunter-droids were again, his red optics glinting dangerously as he watched them harvesting what energy they could this far from the primary. He observed them a good long while, waiting for the best way to snag one for his own use, taking care not to deplete his stores. This sneaking around slag wasn't his thing, this was what they had bird-brain for, but Laserbeak was useless for actually handling anything that he couldn't peck or shoot at. This was gonna take more than that. He had to get one of the droids, wrestle it down fast, and get back down into the fortress before it could get away. _Then_ he had to figure out who to wake up....

It wasn't like one of the damn things was carrying enough fuel for Boss. Boss was big and had all that...null-space slag to worry about, too. Sure as heck couldn't wake up the Big Boss, because everyone knew where most of the littler 'Cons got cannibalized, trying to fuel that sucking menace of a Pit Demon. Only being bound to Boss had kept all of _them_ safe, and with Boss out... Nah. Not a good idea, at all. Not till there was more than just him available for a power source, no way! He wasn't going near StarCreep, who had barricaded himself in his labs early on when the shutdowns began, either. Smart of him; all his whining had made Big Boss actually look serious about deactivating him. Besides, 'Scream's speechifying was just as sure to get on _his_ nerves as Big Boss's, so really no. His processors clicked for a few astroseconds, something about Screamer -- no, not their Air Commander, but his trine. Skywarp. How many times had they had to listen to Mister I-Can-Go-Anywhere brag about his teleporting trick? He'd have to stretch it, but if what Rumble had picked up out of the human radio broadcasts giving him a perpetual processor ache was right, there was enough energy down on that organic mudball of a planet to top all their tanks and then some. Maybe even wake up Cybertron's engines, and then the _real_ rumbles could begin.

It even helped that old 'Warp was the dimmest of the lights in that bunch, because it meant he, Rumble, got to be on top for a while. With that in mind, he went hunting, cursing all the 'Con paranoia about where they had deactivated, because he had to search low and high for the Seeker...only to find him and his stupid Trine mate just outside 'Creep's labs. Why they even bothered...

Rumble whapped him with a piledriver just for making him hunt all over the slagging base, then scrambled up, dragging the clicking droid with him, to grab one of the fuel ports and shove the connections into place. The hunter-droid fell silent after all its energies were drained, and the larger mech slowly opened dull ruby optics. "Wha..."

"Welcome back, sunshine," Rumble said, jumping back off of him. "Fortress mainframe woke me up. We're tight up on a system primary, and there's a planet down there prime for raiding. _If_ you can still remember how to port your shiny aft around..."

"Rum...ble." Skywarp forced his internals to shunt power to just critical systems. If Rumble needed him like that, he was pretty safe from the slagger, so weapons were powered off, and all but basic shields. He took in that Thundercracker was unharmed but inert, then became aware of damage. "The slag is this?" he asked, looking at the dent.

"Droid was trying to get away from me," Rumble shrugged his arms, hands spreading a little. "That planet? Has some kinda sentient organic on it. Common word seems to be 'human', not that it matters. There's a few of 'em here -- they've got spaceflight, kinda. So there's already lots of refined fuel down there."

"Yeah?" Skywarp tested his drive, frowning. "Going to need at least another one of these to jump." His optics implied Rumble's energies would work just fine too.

"I can catch one, think I got their pattern figured out, now. Dumblebrat's awake, or I'da had enough to wake him, too." He looked at Thundercracker for a second. He wouldn't've, he'da woke Boss if he'd had that kinda energy, but Skywarp was too dumb to realize it. "The organics're in Iacon with him, doing some scrapping thing with sheet metal."

"Get me one, and I'll go get a cargo load from where they're swarming," Skywarp agreed. He'd be still, rest, conserve his energy. For now, he just listened to the noise in the airwaves instead.

"Got a translation program running in the mainframe, if you're actually interested," Rumble offered, before he headed back off. He had to move kind of slow -- not exactly like he had a whole tank to run off of -- but he'd get there. And back. And then once 'Warp got back, oh, the real fun would start. It might take a while to get everybody they wanted awake -- he wondered how long they could leave 'Screamer offlined, smirking to himself -- but that world down there was gonna fuel all of them until they ran it dry.

*~*~*

Bumblebee had returned them to the ship, had a short conference with them, and then been invited to study the various solar panels that bedecked the shuttle, so he could figure out if he could make something like them. He found that some of the materials were very rare elements on Cybertron, but... it was possible. It wouldn't be as easy as the "windmills" he had talked about with the humans, but it would be a more efficient source. They were worth attempting, he decided. It would be so much easier with Wheeljack or Perceptor awake, but that was going to have to wait. He huffed a sigh through his vents, shaking his helm.

"What is it big guy?" Lennox asked, even as Andropov and Epps found all the batteries aboard that could be spared for them.

"These would be much better made by Wheeljack or Perceptor, any of our scientists... I'm only a scout."

"Maybe the batteries will be enough?" Lennox suggested gently.

"Some of them aren't very big," Bumblebee replied, about the batteries, but his optics did brighten a little. "Maybe enough to wake one of them, anyway, so this gets done right. There're so many to wake up..." he clicked and whirred for a moment, shaking his helm. "How are you doing with the ship's energy levels, and finding room for Rewind?"

"Well, after we netted a couple of the buggers trying to steal the energy from us, we managed to top back off nicely," one of the other crewmen said. "We should be able to launch."

"Good," Bumblebee nodded, pleased that they were going to be all right. "I must have missed some when I was re-programming them, my apologies." As good as it had been to have someone to talk to -- someone new, even, with stories unlike anything he had ever heard, and designs so unlike everything he was familiar with -- they did not belong here, and with Rumble out there... Best that they returned to Earth with all speed, to warn of the threat.

"We'll go home, the little guy talks for you," Lennox said. "and we get help for you."

"Thank you," Bumblebee said, for what felt like the hundredth time -- not that he minded. "Be careful."

"Yeah. That gets top billing. Right?" Epps glared at Lennox, who just gave a half smile and a shrug. Careful wasn't exactly the word for the CO, as Epps well knew, but damn it'd be a nice change.

Bumblebee chuckled softly, amused at them, and twitched his mouthplates into a smile as he backed away from the shuttle and its panels. The crew started loading up again at that, ready to go home and hopefully get things moving fast.

Lennox wasn't holding out a whole lot of hope for that, given bureaucracy at its best, but then again, he'd been surprised at how fast they managed to get _this_ trip together. Maybe it could happen twice?

*~*~*~

Skywarp handled the second hunter-droid brought to him eagerly, feeling the recharge flow through him. He slowly stood then, making sure that Thundercracker wasn't too badly positioned for when he got back to wake him up. He then looked at Rumble and shook his head. "That planet's a long ways off still. How'm I supposed to bounce that far on two slagging droids? Where they swarming at?"

"All I can snag is one at a time, 'Warp," Rumble retorted. "You've got enough power now to go do your own hunting, all the better. They were goin' between Iacon and the Triax Plateau, where the organics dropped their shuttle. They're probably stayin' pretty tight in on Iacon, now, with whatever the slag Dumblebrat's got them up to."

"Heh. I'll take him down, I see him," Skywarp promised the little Con. "Don't need to let them be feeding slagging Autobots."

"He could use a good deactivating," Rumble agreed, still smarting from having been beaten by the Autobot scout. No matter that he was bigger, that was just glitchingly insulting.

Skywarp stretched his wings and then walked to an exit... no sense wasting energy. They were high enough up, and one was close enough for a good drop and glide. Trust Starscream to have those basics covered, anyway, no matter how much he tended to just run his mouth.

He jumped out, transforming in the next moment. The air was wilder than he remembered when he fell into it, rushing almost warm over his wings, sensuous and wicked with currents. It had been eons -- even without counting the time asleep -- since he'd felt Cybertron's air this energized, and all his sensors sank into the rush of data.

"Mind on your goal, exhaust head," came Rumble's voice a few microts later, remembering just how bad Seekers could get.

"Go slag yourself," he replied after a few astroseconds, sensors still feeding him data in a dizzying stream of position markers and situational awareness. The reminder helped, though, and he navigated towards Iacon, firing his thrusters when he needed more lift or maneuverability, but mostly riding the currents of air that had been absent from Cybertron for so long.

"Stick it up your exhaust, vapor head!" Rumble snarled back at him.

"...I could always _say_ Bumblebee got the better of you," Skywarp replied after a few more astroseconds to think about the best way to point out that Rumble was about the size of one of his feet. 

"Try it slaghead! You really think I'm dumb enough to wake you without taking precautions?" Rumble bluffed. "You get your aft moving and get this thing rolling so we can wake up the right mechs!"

"I am," Skywarp replied with a blast of static, and dropped lower to the deck as he approached Iacon, looking for the drones' flight path. 

That was easy enough to do, once he was looking, as they were gathering in greater numbers as they proved able to harness the minute energies reaching Cybertron quite effectively. Slagging Dumblebrat -- and probably Teletraan-1, too -- had them all running Iacon's way... well, at least all of them on this quadrant of the planet, and Kaon was in the dark at the base of the planet, still. He waited until he saw enough of them to be useful and pounced, stuffing them into his cockpit and cargo space. It was good to be hunting again, even something as simple as the stupid droids. 

He took off as soon as he had them, before they could send off their little distress signals, heading back for Kaon and the twerp. If he got his tanks good and full, he might even toss the runt one. 

+++

The human shuttle got loaded up fast, once enough energy and solid fuel had been applied. Seaton was quite pleased to report they had more fuel than they would have at landing once Bumblebee followed Teletraan's instructions on how to modify the tanks and burners. It was going to be a long trip back, but Bumblebee was sure that they would make it in time to be a help. The 'Cons only had a few space worthy mechs, and of those, they'd take as long to travel as the shuttle, at least. Except maybe Skywarp, he had amended, then prayed Primus wasn't that mean to the Autobots.

Rewind had been everywhere on the shuttle, checking things out -- and asking every member of the crew everything he could think of about sports, building himself a roster of teams favored by these first organics he'd met. And a vocabulary of sports slang, but that was beside the point. When the word came that the shuttle was ready to lift, he flipped into data disc form and let Seaton slide him into one of the shuttle's slots. He was more comfortable in something if he wasn't working, and he took up less space and mass this way. 

Lennox just scratched his head, and settled back for lift-off. Once he was in space again, he was going to start the report, and they all were going to add to it. Hard enough to believe it even in the middle of it, but Lennox knew he had to convince the UN that they were facing something nasty and might just want to consider making friends fast with the helpful side. That meant capturing everyone's impressions of all that had happened on the planet.

At least he wasn't going to be bored, he thought wryly, before he started talking to them one by one. Not that there was anything like real privacy on the shuttle, but he could at least try and get each of them -- you never knew what someone else might have seen that you missed. And he knew he was biased towards them, he'd had giant robot toys as a kid and sci-fi flicks all his life. 

"Speaks good Russian," Andropov dropped on him in the middle of their talk, making him blink in surprise for a second. The older spacer smirked a little at the expression in his face, and shrugged. "Was cursing the gun, and he asked me something. Good accent, for learning it from television." 

"Makes sense, if that's how they cracked English... probably translated all the languages being broadcast," Lennox commented. "UN big heads will hate that..."

"Because someone understands them, no matter the language they are in? ...Da. They probably will. I do not, much. With language comes understanding, sometimes. That... we all need." 

For being such an old spacer, Lennox thought, Andropov had it about right. Or maybe it was because of how long he'd been alone out on the space station. That was a lot of time to think.

+++ 

Skywarp downloaded all the telemetry data from the computers and then looked to the stars above. He could do this, easy as slagging Autobots. Just a few jumps, little by little, angling by the stars to come in on that unsuspecting mudball. He'd get there, dig in somewhere good and pull all the damn energy he needed.

That little ship Rumble had seen proved they had refined fuels. He just needed to find a depot and take as much as he wanted. He'd bring it back, probably straight flight, much as he hated that, and wake up Thundercracker, maybe somebody else. Sure as Pits wasn't going to be 'Screamer though. He'd go and do something stupid, when this was too good a chance to get what they needed to win the war. Nah, 'Warp'd make sure someone was around to keep their illustrious trine leader in check before they woke him up. Wasn't like it was going to be easy getting to him, barricaded in his lab like that.

+++

Lennox came back from the briefing with anger snapping in his eyes. It took him a long time of running off at the mouth about bureaucratic nonsense, before he looked at Epps. "If that's the way our military brains are going to act, we better get ready for a hellstorm to fall out from this. Start trying to find the SOS Bumblebee was telling us about, its frequency. Let's hope that Rewind has a better time than I did this morning."

"What the hell happened? And I'm on it; Rewind gave me the frequency earlier before Seaton took him over to the UN building." Epps watched his mission leader with the sinking feeling he knew just what had happened."

"They're afraid of all of them, no matter what. Seems a refinery in Saudi got hit by some calamity, no one's talking, but the brass is almost certain it's related to our new friends or their enemies."

"Shit."


	2. Can't Let Sleeping Robots Lie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Assume the more innocent times of G1 for the inexplicable actions of humanity agreeing something is in their best interests

Bumblebee had seen the humans off, then desperately began working on harnessing enough energy from both the make shift wind turbines and the hunter-droids themselves to make enough energon to bring around one of the big guys. He'd love to have Prime or another leader like that, right away, but out of all his options, the best bet for mixing processors and capability was probably Ratchet. The medic would know more ways to attune the collectors for the strange energies swirling around, and could out-think any 'Con Rumble had wound up waking. He knew who he thought that was, but...

Ratchet's processors flicked online before his optics did, and he ran a check of his systems with a trace of the power in them. Long disused, some parts slightly dessicated, but everything seemed to be in fine working order and he turned his optics on, looking at -- Bumblebee. Of course. If anyone was going to be functioning again, it was their scout. "Bumblebee. What's going on?"

"Ummm... I made First Contact?" Bee offered, right off the bat. "Alien, carbon-based, tiny little species. But sentient and space-capable."

"...carbon-based, and sentient?" Ratchet asked, tipping his helm to the side slightly in interest. "That would set some of the xenobiology theorists back on their afts, hard -- what is all of that _chatter_?"

"Oh, yeah. I've learned to tune it out while I was waiting to get you enough energy," Bumblebee said. "Apparently they can't hear it without equipment, but it allowed Teletraan-1 to build us a translation matrix. Many languages, apparently, since they have such a limited hearing range." Bumblebee sucked a breath in, looking a little worried. "Rumble was awake. Teletraan-1 tracked a Seeker as well."

"A Seeker? No, slow down. You met an alien species -- so they must have come here. Most species need both a planet and a primary, so we must have drifted at least relatively close to one?"

"Teletraan-1 told me we've actually slowed as we entered the system!" Bumblebee said excitedly. "Only one Asteroid belt, an Oort cloud, some normal planets, some gas giants..." he detailed. "The third planet is the aliens' world. And yes, I met some aliens! I had to beat Rumble off, and they're about his size or just a bit smaller. They were really... nice. I got Rewind to wake up and go back to warn them, as well as find out who is beeping SOS at us...."

"I see why you said tiny," Ratchet said, shaking his helm slightly. "Show me them?" As he waited for Bumblebee to give him the image, he thought over the rest of the words. "That's a powerful gravitational pull, to have slowed Cybertron down. Not that I'm going to complain. The hunter droids must have done their jobs, if you woke up -- and Kaon's did too, more's the slagging pity. All right. You kept them safe, and sent one of the cassettes down with them... SOS? There's one of ours on their planet?"

"Old old old comm frequency, Ratchet, but yes. And Of course I protected them; they were tiny." Bumblebee pulled up a projection of the shuttle, the team, and Rumble, just as he had seen before jumping into battle.

Ratchet filed that image into his memory. "All right. Nice work, 'Bee. Is anyone else awake, or is it just us -- and Rumble, and whichever Seeker?" Interesting, that. The Seekers were usually pushy about only moving in their trines or hexes, for a single one to be functioning was... definitely unusual, and hopefully meant the 'Cons didn't have any more power than they did.

"As far as I can tell. I'm afraid the Seeker might have been 'Warp, because he hasn't been seen since he was scanned that one time," Bumblebee supplied. "I can't scout very far, because I have to keep diverting any hunter-droids that aren't taking command codes from Teletraan-1; I think Rumble or Kaon's Nemesis is hacking them. They keep trying to siphon from the wind turbine the humans helped me build."

"That... that could be a problem." Skywarp was trouble in all kinds of ways, none of them anything resembling good. "It's not like him not to be visible... unless he's not on the planet any more. He can chain that warping ability. How far away is the aliens' planet? Humans, you said?"

"It can't be that far; their vessel worked on solid fuel principles." Bumblebee shrugged; he wasn't that up to date on the system yet. "I figured you were the best bet for help."

"All right... here's hoping I live up to that," Ratchet said, pushing to his feet. "Nothing we can do about Skywarp, but let's go see what I can do about the droids, and then take a look at what you've got going for energy gathering."

"Yes sir!" Bumblebee added a smile, as he knew Ratchet was going to snap a look at him for that. "Couldn't resist... you're my only senior officer!"

"You're lucky you're as cute as you are," Ratchet told him, shaking his helm, before he headed for Teletraan's main interface, high above.

+++

Skywarp felt absolutely glutted even as he turned his nose skyward and away from this planet. It was giving him a processor ache, and some of those weapons had bruised when they tried to shoot him down after the third raid. He wasn't looking forward to the run back; it was boring flying straight with no one on his wing. Slag it; he'd make the straight line calculations, and then just go into stasis for the most part. Long, boring journeys were for sleep.

++

Rewind, for all that he was still as big as a human, really, really wished there were bigger, full Cybertronians here to speak. He had to address the world delegates, and make them understand the dangers inherent in the war. He had pushed for as open a conference within the international laws as he could reach, believing that the more people he could speak too at once, the better things would be once Prime was here and could truly negotiate. The news being muttered all over the floor in various languages of a strange attack on Saudi Arabian oil fields left him worried; Rumble couldn't have come to Earth on his own, but that sounded like a Decepticon raid. How was he going to do this, when the humans, logically in some ways, feared the unknown that he, Cybertron, and their war represented.

He wanted to pace, just a little, but that wouldn't look right. He had to be brave, and steady, and convince them. Since Rumble couldn't have made it on his own, and only a Seeker could have made it here this fast -- only one Seeker, really, Skywarp -- that... that wasn't good. He looked to Seaton again, his blue optics glowing faintly, and waited for the cue that it was his time to talk as the assembly came to order. It reminded him of the Senate of his own people, more than anything else... and that wasn't much comfort, given how useless the Senate had been!

Seaton nodded to him, giving him a warm smile. He knew how scared the little guy was... strange to call him little, but he had seen Bumblebee. When they were announced, he gave Rewind an encouraging pat down one metal arm, and indicated it was time to talk.

Rewind stood up at the front of everyone and looked at all the sentient beings made of carbon chains in complex combinations, still marveling at the ability of their species to function. "Peoples of Earth, I am Rewind, to best translate my name for you. I am a Cybertronian from the planet that has wandered into your system, a member of the Autobots. My planet is, or was, mostly in stasis, until the energies of your sun began reviving it. Unfortunately, my planet is also in the midst of a war, and I fear the whispers you say of an attack indicate one of the Decepticons, the other side, is awake and mobile, harvesting more energy for their people. I have been chosen to make you aware of the dangers of the Decepticons."

One of the humans leaned forward to the microphone in front of him, speaking up. "My country was attacked. I am very interested to hear what you have to say about this, as I am certain we all are."

"I wish that my apologies could mean something more than words, Sir. I can theorize that it was Skywarp... he has the capability to bend space and teleport from place to place. If he is awake, he will steal energies until he has enough to awaken his chain of command. This would be very bad, because I have not seen much to indicate your people have the ability to combat them effectively." He spoke honestly, if a little bluntly; lies were for 'Cons after all.

"You admit that you are one side of a war, and yet expect us all to believe that it is this other side that is responsible? I regret to say that that gives me little comfort, familiar with war as I believe all of us are."

That caused another low buzz, a mixture of agreement and unease, in the great hall.

Rewind sighed, the look of hurt and dejection all over his face plates. "I know, I know... blame the other guys, get sympathy for my side. But if you got any surveillance at all, I could show you the faction symbols!" He tapped his little Autobot brand proudly. "My side wears this. Theirs...." He popped up the purple sigil in holo form, its malevolent nature so easliy apparent. "My side has blue optics. They have red."

The Saudi man leaned forward slightly, focused and intent on the shapes for long moments, and then finally nodded, once. "We are not releasing our intelligence, but I will say that I have seen that symbol, and it was involved in the attack. Thank you."

"I understand." Rewind smiled happily to have helped him, and continued. "I am told I must make you understand how brutal they can be. That as my own people awaken, if they can do so in time, they will do whatever it takes to prevent the war from affecting your people, but... when I left only one, a scout, was awake. If Skywarp is stealing energy, they will awaken faster, and try to deactivate all my people."

"You say you are told?" a woman, light-skinned, asked from a few rows further forward. "And by 'deactivate', so that I am sure, you mean, as it would be put in English, 'kill'? Or something else?"

"Kill, yes." Rewind shrugged a little. "I am... only a Symbiont. I work with a full-size Cybertronian, performing special duties. I am more than a drone, but not quite of the full processing ability of the big ones. Bumblebee, despite being small, is a full Cybertronian and he asked me to take this mission, because I would fit on the space shuttle."

That drew another murmur, low and quiet, before she spoke again. "Fitting on the space shuttle was a concern? For reasons of mass and their ability to return to us, or...?"

"That first, because we would not ever endanger another being if we could help it," Rewind clarified. "Secondly... you are a small people. It would not be right for your first contact with us to have to be someone even as little as Bumblebee."

Seaton had to smile at that, remembering the way the team had reacted to the yellow warrior. If he was a small one... man, it was going to be weird to meet the big ones.

"Would you clarify, please?" another man asked, from a row near the back. "What height is someone 'as little as 'Bumblebee''?"

Rewind smiled at the request. "Certainly. In your terms, he stands a little over 10 feet, or close to your 3 meter mark. It is one reason he is a scout."

"And he is small? What height is a large member of your species, then?"

"Optimus Prime," and Rewind said it in a breath of awe and respect, "stands nine point seven five of your meters tall. 32 feet and 8 inches. Unfortunately, many Decepticons are even larger."

Around the hall, people glanced up, trying to settle the idea of a single being with that much height in their minds. That was almost half the height of the assembly hall, likely the height of the televisions that now showed the robot standing before them, before all sets of eyes slowly returned to Rewind. 

"Larger?" came another voice, somewhat faint, from the front row.

"Our greatest foe, the leader of the Decepticons, in his mech mode, is nearly three meters taller," Rewind said, an instinctive shudder in his shoulders, and hushed voice to his pronouncement. "The Decepticons tend to be larger, having come, mostly, from the more violent aspects of our culture. Whether it was the exploration corps, the military, or, worst, the gladiator pits, they have had the advantage on us for some time because they knew fighting. We Autobots... most of us were so-called domestic lineages. We did day-to-day work and only a small few of us knew what fighting was."

Noise broke out instantly, a polylingual hum of apprehension and unease, and Seaton hid a sigh under his professional demeanor as he looked at Rewind from the corner of his eye. That had been far from the brightest thing to tell a bunch of politicians, but then again, maybe it would bring enough of them to enlightened self-interest, at least, and get them to help the Autobots. He saw the President of the General Assembly shift slightly, and then think better of doing anything but let the collective noise wear down.

Rewind waited, patient and still on the outside, but on the inside of his processors, he was wishing so hard for Blaster. Blaster was the master of words and communication and could have made them all understand.

When most of the noise had calmed, the President spoke up, restoring order, and looked to Rewind. "Go on, please, with the information you came to give us."

Rewind stood tall, and fell into playback mode, missing Blaster for this. "Decepticons are heavily armed, and had gained control of much of the planet until the rise of Optimus Prime. With Prime to lead the Autobots, a stalemate was achieved, but the energy resources of our world were failing. The planet, long since knocked from stable orbit, had no primary, and the core had failed. As the vorns passed, stasis was chosen by some, and finally the only option when an Autobot plan to seek energy failed before achieving results. However, the pull of this primary has slowed Cybertron enough to cause energy gatherers to have enough energy to activate, at first, two mechs. One, Rumble, sought to take the human energy. The other, Bumblebee, protected them, and sent me as an emissary." He then recited a few stark figures on weapons ability and such, ending with the chilling statistic of how uneven the war was. "In general, it takes three Autobots to overcome one Decepticon. Even Prime rarely engages the more brutal fighters alone, save for Megatron."

Across the assembly hall, delegates from closely allied nations looked to each other, then to other principals, and the President of the Assembly spoke before any others could. "What do you believe the goals of the Deceptions towards this planet will be?"

Rewind was as honest in answer to this as he had been to the rest. "Megatron will order all energy taken for their use. They will subjugate the planet to their needs. If it suits his purposes, he may choose to leave the lifeforms of the planet in place, but as alien as organics are to our race, most likely the Decepticons as a whole will decide the organics are not to be trusted or allowed to live."

"And your people?" That was the Secretary-General, from beside the President.

Rewind smiled brightly, eagerly. "Captain Lennox said your world has an energy crisis of its own, yet... that is improbable by our own standards. It is probable that Wheeljack and the other scientists would help you learn to make the most of these abundant energy sources at hand. Depending on if Cybertron continues to move, or if our world is caught in the gravity wells, we would likely follow up with trade, to find some way to repay any help we are given."

Seaton was sure, in the moment of utter silence, that no-one in this hall but him had been anything resembling ready for the sheer generosity of spirit those words reflected.

"Did I offend?" Rewind asked sadly. "If you prefer to solve the crisis yourself, we would understand, but... the offer would exist."

"I am not offended, simply... taken aback by the offer, as I believe most of this body was," the Secretary-General said, shaking his head. "It would... be a complicated process, I am sure, but that would be... a great benefit to very many nations."

Rewind cocked his head to the side. "I cannot, of course, say for certain, as I am only a Symbiont, but it is the kind of thing I would think they would offer." He paused, seeing some take air for comments. "It could be far more; I am unaware of all the workings."

At that, the more-often restrained Assembly erupted in a furor of questions, at volume and in an emphatic array of languages... but Seaton could seen in the faces of many of the delegates something he was very unused to in politicians -- hope.

++++

"So what's the score, little buddy?" Epps asked as he heard Rewind's step behind him, where he was switching between two sets of monitors and programs that were his best shot at narrowing down the exact location of that signal. "How'd things go with the U.N.?"

"Better than I had first feared," Rewind said, coming around to where Epps could see him easily. "I seem to have convinced them of the danger this planet is in. Your U.N. reminds me very much of the old Senate of Cybertron... I admit, this is not entirely positive. I still fear they will take more time than my people have -- however, I received an offer of... preliminary alliance? from them. Things were... better, once I could speak to your 'Security Council'? I believe this means that we should be able to at least retrieve the Cybertronian stranded here."

"Yeah, about that... your frequencies are almost off my chart, but I think...I have these fine-tuned enough to help." Epps grinned. "If it's in the airwaves, I will find it."

"Can I do anything?" Rewind asked, tipping his helm to the side and blinking his optics curiously.

"We have a lot of noise in our air... think you were bitchin' about that," Epps said. "Anyway, I'm filtering it out, bit by bit, and amping it to be heard in my range, looking for a pattern. When I find it...can you tell me if it's really your dude, or not?"

"No sweat," Rewind said, shrugging. "Easier than a homer at Coors Field, man. We were pretty certain, that frequency is pure Cybertronian, but... there is a _lot_ down here."

Epps stared at him. "You gonna keep freakin' me out by being so human, man?"

"Hey, it's nice to have sports to learn again," Rewind said, shrugging both shoulders. "I love 'em. And you have so _many_ , it's wonderful, even if my storagebanks are going to eventually give me a processor ache."

Epps shook his head. "Yeah, well, when you get around to learning football and basketball, tell me. We'll talk then."

"Yeah? College or pro?"

Epps grinned. "College football. Both for B-ball." He kept fiddling with the dials and tuners, until a signal burst through crystal clear for Rewind to hear...such an old code...and recognize.

"That's it! That's a pre-war exploration team's beacon, no doubt at all... probably means he's mech, not many femmes went out-system.... and we already know he's somewhere in the polar region..."

"Yeah, but with this," Epps said, fixing that signal and then starting to run a patch through other systems to get a triangulation, "we'll be certain just where. It's hard working up in the damn ice. I want to go and get back without freezing my balls off."

"Freezing you -- oh. Oh, my. It must be inconvenient, having your reproductive systems placed so externally..."

Epps looked at the mech, then about brayed in laughter, slapping the guy on his shoulder... only to hiss and wring his hand in mock pain.

"Are you all right?!" Rewind asked, carefully catching at the cloth of Epps' sleeve to turn his optics up.

"Yeah man... you're tough; you ain't that tough," Epps told him. He grinned a little. "It's like a joke."

"Oh.. alright. Good, good. I like you, I would not like hurting you," Rewind said, nodding, then glanced at the monitors. "I think your program is up to something..."

Epps gave his attention back to his job, then whooped loudly. "Got a bingo," he called out to Lennox. "Give it ten more years, and we wouldn't need to dig... sitting on one of the rotting ice shelves, looks like."

Lennox came on back over, leaning against the desk. "Still gonna take a plane to get there, and air travel up that far north... Well, at least your buddy's in Canada, Rewind, they'll probably be more cooperative about letting us land in their backyard, once we figure out how we're getting up there."

"Canada... They liked the idea of better energy." Rewind remembered that much from the angry and surprised words that had been the degeneration of the meeting.

"Not surprised. I'll go talk to some people, see how fast we can get this moving," Lennox said, and took off at a jog again.

Epps looked at his buddy, having grown used to the mech in their time on the trip back. "So, you're going to be able to talk to the icicle, right?"

"I had a life before the war, too," Rewind said, then flashed a smile to show he held no hard feelings. "Shouldn't be that much trouble. It is Cybertronian. We're not like you humans, with ever-changing languages. He might use different idiom, but we'll understand each other, and I can bring him up to speed pretty quick."

"Okay." Epps didn't want to dwell on the phrasing 'a life', as if Rewind might be different now than then. It hit the alien buttons too strongly, and tried to make Epps not see the robot as a sentient being in itself.

Rewind heard tension, and cocked his helm to the side. "What? Sorry, some of my ... siblings?... were sparked after the war started, when Blaster needed more help than just Eject and Steeljaw and I could give him."

"Oh!" Epps shook his head, a slight darkening of his cheeks, as he realized he had totally misunderstood. "I... I thought maybe... you'd just meant you were different then."

"I... war changes everyone," the quiet answer came after a moment, followed by "I _was_ different, before the war. I think everyone was -- except maybe Megatron." That was biting and bitterly sad, accompanied by another shake his helm. "It... hurts. But we can't give up."

Epps couldn't help it; he reached over and laid a hand on Rewind's shoulder, trying to offer comfort. "Seen a lot of shit. I get it."

Rewind put his hand up over Epps', nodding. "Lots of dross, and lots of slag... but it's been a long war. That happens. You have them, too."

"Yeah." Epps shrugged. "Gotta be done, man."

++++

Skywarp was feeling elated by the sensation of full tanks and, even better, a complete charge in his system. Even coming back to Cybertron the slow way hadn't been too bad, all things considered. He could get Thundercracker up and moving, and figure out which of the commanders was the best bet. Rumble-head would want Soundwave, but Mister Monotone was boring. Of course, Shockwave wasn't any slagging better, and there was no way in the Pits Skywarp was going near Starscream.

Rumble's sensors heard the warning tone from the central computer and he onlined his optics again, bringing his processors back to full functioning from the light hibernation state he'd been waiting in. He'd tried, twice, to hack the droids' programming and re-direct them, but Dumblebrat was good at his slagging job, much as Rumble hated to admit it. He'd decided, after the second attempt, that he'd be better off jumping single ones for the energon and filling his own reserves that way, more than anything else.

Skywarp was cruising in at a slow pace, landing with the stores of energy he'd obtained; it was always tricky to try and store energy during the transformation process, so better to let Rumble unload it. If he hadn't had the luck of finding liquid energy sources, things might have gotten difficult to grab the stuff. Luckily, most Seekers could process liquids into semi-solid energon cubes inside their own holds. It was a survival trick from before the war.

Rumble looked at where he was aiming to land and jogged that way, hitting the landing area about the time Skywarp did. "What took you? Nemesis's been demanding power for the defense grid non-stop."

"Slag off." He opened his payload, showing the gleam of energon cubes by the hundreds.

Rumble's optics sparkled, hungry brilliant crimson, and he grabbed hold of one of the ladders to shove it over close enough that he could scramble up and start unloading the energon cubes. "What the Pits did you hit, and how much damage did you do to the supplies down there?"

"Supplies, hell. They've got these huge sands of energy down there, just pumping this stuff up for the taking!" Skywarp gloated.

"...you're telling me this is just the tip of what's down there?" Rumble said, scrambling down with two and back up. "This beats what I figure Dumblebrat's been able to get off those fans all hollow." His voice trailed off for a moment, and then a thought struck him. He smiled, wide and hungry, and looked up. 

"'Warp, this could be one pit of a rumble..." He didn't even try to hold back the laughter, letting it ring out in Kaon's long silence, high and wild and thrilled. After all this time... 

Skywarp laughed too, a touch of cruelty in it, but mostly just from the pure feeling of elation, to finally win this damn war. With this kind of an energy advantage, surely they could finally scrap that pack of domestics and make Cybertron into the power that it should be! 

Rumble finally stopped laughing and got moving again, running up and down the ladder with the energon, quick as he could. "So. Bossman, _right_? Yeah, yeah, and your slagging 'mate."

"Gonna need TC's support so we can strafe the Pits out of the slagging 'Bots." Skywarp refused to rise to the bait of Rumble's jibe, busy looking forward to the mayhem. "Megatron..." It suited him. A lot more than any of the commanders.

"...long as _you_ do it, you've got dross for a central processor if you think I'm going to be that close to him coming out of stasis," Rumble said, his attention caught by that idea. He'd meant his _own_ bossman, not the Big Boss, but.... there was something to the thought of waking Megatron first. If there wasn't the blank spot in the back of his processor where Soundwave was supposed to be, he wouldn't even be hesitating for a moment.

Skywarp had already cheerfully discarded the idea of Soundwave. He'd get TC up and running, then the pair of them could get Megs back on his feet. Might even be a promotion in there for them.

+++

Finding a vehicle that could handle the cold, carry extra barrels of fuel, and all of Lennox's hand-picked team plus Rewind had taken some creative finagling. As had disappearing long enough to do so, with as few heads of state knowing about it as possible. Lennox was concerned over UN paranoia because even though there was a frantic push to make certain it was not an invasion force of the Decepticons coming to take away all their oil, the United Nations were making little leeway in determining just what aid to render. Whoever was hidden up in the ice, Rewind had reasoned, had to be space capable, and that might give them all the edge they needed, so long as the ice-bound ancient robot turned out to be a good guy. Or willing to be one, as Epps had pointed out, after having listened to a lot of rewind's stories about his world.

Despite all of that, they had managed to get the craft and get on the move, and were now setting down on the ice shelf at a point only half a kilometer or so away from the beacon's location. That wasn't going to be a pleasant trip, but there was a thin place in the ice there that would make setting down any closer dangerous. At least it was high summer on this pole, which meant sun and the warmest the temperatures there ever got. They unloaded the craft and left its engines idling with the co-pilot aboard as they made the "short" trek across the ice, hauling one of the fuel containers with them in shifts.

"I am going to learn to say no!" Epps told Lennox as they made their way across the ice carefully. He spared a glance at Rewind, noting the little guy was generating some kind of energy shield to stay warm, because any snow or moisture crackled a little when it hit around him. 

"That will be the same day I do!" Andropov called. "No worse than Siberia!"

"...remind me not to move there, then," Lennox said, shaking his head, not really any warmer than Epps was, but unwilling to admit it. "Rewind, buddy, let us know when we get there, huh?"

"Of course!" Rewind cheerfully saluted the human. He could feel the pulse of the beacon, hear it deep in the part of his processor that remembered the vast crystalline gardens and their easy-going days as couriers before the war. It pushed him onward, curious who it would be, just what kind of mech or femme could have been lost for so long that they still used the unified band.

Lennox grinned and kept moving, until the point Rewind called out, "We're in kicking distance!"

Epps turned and stared at the mech, "What, man?"

"We're here, now we've just got to get down to... him, I think, that beacon feels like a mech, not a femme."

Lennox looked around, smacking his boot heel into the ice. "Any idea how far down we're going to have to dig, now that we're close?"

Rewind looked, did a little investigation with his limited sensors before wishing Wheeljack was there, and that sparked an idea. "No digging! We'll shoot for a hole in one with some explosives!" he told the leader. "YOu do have explosives, right?"

"...some of us are Rangers, yes, we've got explosives," Lennox said, and then looked at him again. "Are you sure about that? I'd hate to have our first meeting with whoever this is be ruined by damaging him trying to get him out..."

Rewind shook his helm. "No damage. We'll still have some ice to chip, but..." He paced the distance off, then walked it again, finally coming to a point and kneeling. He popped a small cutting torch into place on his hand, and starting hollowing out a hole to place the explosives in. "...Right here will do to break most of it free."

It didn't take long to get the explosives set, or to get back away from the hole far enough that no matter how the ice cracked, they would be safe. Lennox looked around again, wondering how irritated the Canadians were going to be at a chunk of the ice shelf being suddenly dislodged, but since they had an ally underneath of it...

Rewind stopped cycling air for a moment, before remembering that he needed to keep his hydraulics from freezing. This was a riskier maneuver than he had let on, but then Blaster was always telling him not to say everything that he knew. Thinking about Blaster made him homesick, but Rewind never failed a task he was given.

Epps sent the signal to trigger the explosive, then let out an exultant whoop of delight at how much ice exploded and rained down around the blast area. "I love getting to blow up things sometimes."

Lennox snorted and corrected his second, "All the time, you mean," before they headed up to move as much of the ice as they could, at least enough to see what they'd found... and froze, snapping his hand up to tell his team to freeze, at what met his eyes. The head of the mech under there was clearly visible... and just as clearly, much bigger than they were. He'd guess there were nine feet from the lowest point of the jaw to the highest crest of the helm if there was an inch -- and the rest of the frame looked to be on the same massive scale. "...whoa..."

"Transport," Rewind breathed softly as he moved to where he could see. Before even Epps could say a word, the little mech was scrambling down into the ice, away from the head, hoping he could reach the right spot on the chest to try and transfer the excess energy he had to the Spark locked in stasis.

"Did _you_ catch what he said?" Lennox asked, turning towards his team, eyebrow raised.

"I think he said 'transport'," their Russian comrade told him. "He has no fear; this is either very good, or very stupid."

"It's our luck; I'm voting the second," Epps muttered.

Lennox snorted, laughing a little, and called down to Rewind. "Anything we can do?"

"Get the barrel we brought ready... it will let him break himself free, I think." Rewind knew this part well. Any symbiont knew how to give most of their own energy to their partner. "Come on, slugger; bases are loaded, and we need you to hit us home..." Rewind told the big mech before he flattened against the seam of the spark chamber.

Hauling _that_ across had been ever so much fun, but they'd done it, and they shifted the barrel over, getting it to where it ought to be easily reached. 

Skyfire felt energy surge down into his systems, his processors coming online with a slow, sluggish whir. Cold, _deep_ cold, and... his optics flicked online, and he saw a small -- very small, the size only of a symbiont -- mech pushed against his chestplates, close to his Spark. That -- he -- was the source of the energy, and Skyfire groaned softly, systems returning damage reports in vivid red in his processors. Starscream... where was Starscream? He reached out along their comm band, calling... and nothing but silence, horrible silence, answered him.

"Easy, big guy. You're going to be okay. You're a transport; transports are friendly, and like others around, so hey, I'm Rewind, and right now I'm the only one of us on planet with you, okay?" the symbiont offered up in the old frequency. "I don't know you, so can I know your designation?"

"Equipment's picking up their communication on the same band as the S.O.S. signal," Epps reported.

"I am Skyfire," Skyfire managed to say, looking down at the small mech against his chest, confused. "But... are you not a symbiont? Where is -- I am sorry, I do not mean to be rude.."

Rewind gave a small, sad little look up at the big guy. "Blaster is still on Cybertron, but Bumblebee needed one of us awake to go. I'm small, but I do miss Blaster."

Skyfire jerked at his hand, trying to free his arm from the solid dihydrogen monoxide surrounding it. He succeeded after a few moments, despite the strain that put on his low energies, and brought his palm up to settle carefully around the small mech's frame. "Cybertron... is not far? I... do not know those designations, I am sorry... I... feel very lost."

"It is not far," Rewind promised him. "There is energy in that container." He pointed it out, before feeding him the scientific formula for it, so that Skyfire could adjust his energy systems for it. "And be careful of the carbon-beings. They are called humans, and they are our friends."

"Carbon-beings?" Skyfire asked, his optics scanning up around the edge of the ice, before he started to smile at the sight of the small, impossible, delightful beings. "Oh. Oh my, they truly are, I always thought the theorists were wrong... but this planet had no life above single-celled microbes, we looked everywhere... what system are the humans from?" //Starscream... Starscream, where _are_ you?// he kept the thought to himself, unwilling even to reach across that echoing, empty band again.

"This one." Rewind pressed against Skyfire's chest again. "You have been lost a very long time, Skyfire."

"That... seems obvious," Skyfire said slowly, thinking about the sheer scale of evolutionary time he must have been buried here. "You said there was energy in the container. I believe my system will be much happier if I take it..." He lifted his hand away from Rewind's frame, carefully, and reached to acquire the barrel between thumb and two digits, noting that the top was already open. He lifted it and brought it to his mouth, taking a careful swallow to test that he had calibrated his systems properly. It was good -- very good -- and rich in energy, and he drank gratefully.

Rewind clambered off of the large mech and away from the ice still clinging to the transport class Seeker. He ended up between Epps and Lennox. "Oh, yeah...language program?" he tossed back at the big guy in offering.

"Yes, please?" Skyfire asked, looking towards Rewind and the humans as he carefully placed the container back down, tensing servos and pistons as he tried to free his frame from the remaining ice, twisting from side to side, trying to decide if his wings were free enough that they would not be damaged if he tried to stand. 

"So?" Lennox asked, stretching the word out.

Rewind threw the program at Skyfire first. He then looked up at Lennox with a happy smile. "We just got Secretariat's speed with Mike Tyson's punch!"

Lennox looked down at him, cocking his head to the side. "That good, huh? And you're sure he's a good guy?" 

Skyfire took the language program, assimilating it into his own vocal processes as he worked himself free, and then crouched down, lowering his frame. "Hello," he said softly, looking at the humans. "My -- name -- is Skyfire. And I am pleased to meet all of you." 

"Holy holy holy, that is one big mother-" Epps caught himself, cut it off, and breathed out slowly. "We come in peace?" he joked.

"Better than pieces," Andropov added.

"I believe it is I that 'came', as Rewind told me that this is your native planet, and I assure you I mean no harm, so it seems that we should get along nicely," Skyfire said after a few moments. "Pieces are never comfortable, even for necessary repairs, so yes, I would agree..." 

"Never gonna get used to that," Lennox muttered at that instant comprehension of English, shaking his head slightly. "Hi, I'm Captain Lennox. This is Tech Sergeant Epps, that one there is Andropov -- we're still arguing what his rank is between our two countries, and that's Warrant Officer Figueroa."

Skyfire nodded for a moment, looking for identifying characteristics in each of the individuals named so that he would not forget them. "I am sorry, I am unfamiliar with rank structures though I have met many military cultures in my explorations... you would be in command, then?"

"In theory," Lennox and Andropov said in tune together. As a cosmonaut, Andropov held a higher rank, but was deferring to Lennox's mission and tactical experience. As he had put it in their first meeting, Lennox was for breaking heads, and Andropov was for saving their keisters when the spaceship broke. Given Andropov's record between Mir and that asteroid thing, Lennox was more than a little certain Andropov was both space crazy and a luck piece.

Skyfire looked between them, curious, but only nodded. His systems were still protesting this level of activity on so little fuel, but it seemed he had little choice.

Rewind could feel that, a residual effect from forcing his own energy into the other's Spark. "Epps, he needs more energy," Rewind said, in a pitiful voice that cut off any of Epps' normal retorts about back-breaking work.

"You heard the little dude. Let's go get another barrel or two for him," the sergeant said, and all the rest of the team had to nod. They hadn't come all this way to leave the big guy after all.

"Thank you, Rewind," Skyfire said, and then looked at the humans starting to move. "I... can I be helpful, at all? I think I can move, at least some..."

"No, no, no," Rewind fussed, with that knowing symbiont way. The big ones _never_ knew how to take care of themselves properly. "You wait. We'll bring two. Then you can come and get the rest, so we can all go get warm."

"All right," Skyfire said, and settled back down on the ice, waiting.

The team started out, and Lennox noted that Rewind was a little slower, not quite so agile, but still a cheerful little guy... and boy, did little take on a whole new perspective having seen Skyfire.

It didn't take all that long, relatively speaking, to return with two more barrels of fuel -- and it certainly didn't take long at all for Skyfire to drain them. He finished them, and then picked the emptied barrels up, carefully compacting them before he tucked the waste into a cargo compartment. He then stretched his hands out, flat along the ground. "I saw the distance you travelled, I am capable of covering it much more quickly. May I help you?"

"Save my legs? Hell yeah," Epps said.

"Spasibo," Andropov said with relief; he was missing space more and more with all this hiking about.

"I will go smaller, to make more room, Figueroa, if you will carry me." Rewind suited action to words, flipping into a small but heavy disk that Figuroa caught and grinned about, before joining the others on that huge hand.

Skyfire lifted them carefully, cradling his other hand around then, and straightened to his full height to walk towards the craft they had brought the fuel from. As he walked, he flared his broad wings as wide as they would go in this form simply for the pleasure of the wind on them, though it was cold...

"...this is going to make one heck of a story to tell my baby girl," Lennox said softly, staring down at the sheer speed that the ground receded under them at in amazement.

"Whoa." Figueroa peered at him, then looked up at his face. "How fast do you go? In flight, I mean?"

"Give me a moment to compute what my speed is in your units of measurement?" Skyfire asked, kneeling down beside the other craft.

"Yeah, sure, man," Figueroa said, grinning in amazement. He set Rewind down, who transformed back to mech. 

"Skyfire, you can carry us, yes?" Rewind asked, as the men started moving the rest of the barrels up for easy use. "It would be faster than you having to fly at the speed of this vessel."

"Of course... I might be able to fit this vessel in my main docking bay, if everyone else will take somewhat tighter space..." Skyfire answered, a corner of his processors still running that computation. 

"Sounds like a plan to me," Epps muttered, cold despite all his hard work.

Skyfire looked at the several barrels of fuel, and flicked a comm line at Rewind, ::Are all of these for me? Truly?::

::We had to be certain we had enough,:: Rewind said. ::I erred on the side of caution. In case you were a lost colony-mech.:: The city-sized ones were very, very rare, but it had been a possibility.

:That makes sense,:: Skyfire nodded slightly, then carefully opened a barrel with a fingertip, taking the contents in. "Ah, I have your answer, Warrant Officer. My typical atmospheric cruising speed is roughly your Mach 5, however, I am capable of using a particular technology and configuration to reach Mach... 29 on lift and touchdown, though I am not certain my inertial dampeners are sufficient to protect your frames from such gravitational forces as takeoff creates..."

The Warrant Officer let out a long, low whistle of admiration. 

"Now you see why I said it?" Rewind asked, beaming.

Skyfire turned his head slightly, looking away from the admiring whistle, "It is not so special," he said softly, "my class were made for swift transit, after all," and he picked up another barrel to avoid having to speak for a few moments.

"Transport class," Rewind said with deep admiration and respect. He would have to wait to tell Skyfire more of what had happened, and that would be painful for the giant mech.

+++

Skywarp was more uneasy than he wanted to admit as he carried an armload of energon cubes into the audience chamber, looking at his Leader's hulking steel grey frame, poised in the command chair as casually arrogant as only Megatron could make appear natural even in stasis. With any luck, when he re-booted his processors would come online first -- but Skywarp hadn't survived this long relying on luck, and he wrote a complete jump program, leaving only the last variable open, and kept it humming in his processor as he crossed the rest of the distance, put the pile of cubes down, and took a place behind the cannon arm to begin to feed Megatron the energy to come out of stasis. //Unmaker, I can't be useful slagged...//

...energon. Fuel, pure and sweet, pouring into his system. A slow trickle, but enough to bring his sensors online. Form. Right side. Seeker-class. High hum of a running generator, above the engines. His processors came fully on, optics still offline. Sound too high to be Thundercracker... but familiar. Skywarp. He brought his optics online, flicking a comm band out to his Seeker as he continued to take the energon, beginning to swallow, rather than simply let it drain in. ::Skywarp. You function. I function. What others?::

::Rumble. Me. Now you.:: Very belatedly, he added. ::Confirmed Autobot Bumblebee as well.:: Skywarp was not too worried now, except by the amount of fuel it had taken to bring his Leader back online. Megatron had decided to talk first, after all. Still, that program stayed handy, just in case.

He was still irked at he and Rumble had argued after making the decision, that Thundercracker was as off limits as Soundwave was, because he wasn't going to be outnumbered that badly. Why had Skywarp even listened...oh, yeah; the cassette-former had booby trapped the area around Thundercracker's frame well enough to block Skywarp from getting to him without blowing something off one of them.

::...of course it would be the scout,:: Megatron rasped across the comm band, draining the energon cube in Skywarp's hand. ::Rumble. Then we are coming into a system with only a moderate amount of ambient power. ...How long have you been functional?::

::Long enough to go from here to the planet with these great air currents and a slag load of energy to harvest. Brought back a full cargo load.:: He had to consult his chronometer to actually put the time into a measurable word, at the hint of impatience from Megatron. ::Not so slight on the ambience... I had to correct for position because Cybertron has slowed more than I anticipated.::

::With that amount of time, there should have been time for the hunter-droids to harvest energy to wake more than only Rumble and yourself,:: Megatron rumbled, sitting up fully. He saw the empty energon cubes beside his feet, the full one still remaining, and put a hand out demandingly, as he thought over what could have gone wrong with his plans. ::Cybertron is slowing? That implies a primary with a powerful pull indeed.::

::It's a young star, average size, but pretty cool to see. We've got true planetary cycles now.:: Skywarp had watched sunrise and sunset on Earth, and then watched them here. Different effects but still distracting to see. ::Oh! The hunter-droids were preempted.::

Megatron growled at the idea, before he took the cube from Skywarp's hand and began to drain it as well, his temper flaring. He cast his processors over the possibilities, and growled again at the only rational conclusion. ::Jazz.::

::Let me go hunting!:: Skywarp immediately offered, liking the idea of finding the Autobot to tear him apart.

::Once I have a full report,:: Megatron rumbled, finishing that cube. "You said you returned with a cargo-load. How much remains? Nemesis should have had several power requirements of its own."

Skywarp's processors had to let go the escape program to draw up how much was left. "Rumble was feeding Nemesis what it needed. There's about three times the amount I brought you left." After all, the raw stuff of Earth had been refined down to make it more suitable for Megatron and the others.

Megatron ran a systems test, and nodded. He could use more energy, but it was not immediately required. What was required was a better understanding of the current situation, and then swift action, before the Autobots, profiting from the reprogramming of his hunter-droids, could get their feet fully settled under them. He wasn't going to lose this war **now** , just because of a little elapsed time!

He pushed to his feet, servos grinding slightly in protest for a moment. "Rumble is in the central control room, then?"

"The twerp wanted to wake Soundwave before you," Skywarp was quick to point out, preparing to walk behind his leader and be of service. "But yeah, he is. Too afraid of you to handle it so I could be doing my job."

Megatron snorted, amused almost despite himself. "Did you two come to blows over if it would be Soundwave or Thundercracker before deciding I was the better option?"

"No!" Skywarp said instantly, which was truth; Rumble had already booby-trapped his bondmate by the point it came up.

"How miraculous," Megatron said, shaking his helm slightly. He'd see what Rumble had to say later, after Nemesis finished informing him of what had gone on during their stasis, and Rumble informed him what had happened since the symbiont's awakening. 

+++

Lennox stepped back to see how well things were moving, and noted they were almost done. He and his team were moving the barrels of irradiated waste into place, all of them in heavy protective gear, still shaking his head. He recalled the conversation between Rewind and Skyfire, talking about the energy stores the humans saw as useless, and then the late night meetings with several heads of state, individually trying to broker deals.

In the end, Skyfire, through Rewind, had refused all of them, until the UN as a whole had listened to the scientist-explorer that he didn't need to take any of their primary energy supplies, there were others that would be perfectly suitable and would not cause so much harm, but he needed to go soon.

"Skyfire, we're still green to go," Lennox offered over the comm frequency they were now using for the big guy as they loaded. "My whole team is more than glad to go with you, now that the baby's born." He didn't know if the Cybertronian had made up his mind about taking them along, but if they were going to get moving, it needed to be soon.

Skyfire checked his internal cameras, seeing that all of the barrels were, indeed, secured properly. "Congratulations on your new sparkling, again," he said. "I hope to be able to see -- her, you said? -- at some point. I will, of course, bring you if you wish it. The information Rewind gave me... it was very clear that you had been valuable allies." He was still Spark-sick from some of that news -- old history to all others, but fresh and devastating news to him; and so very, very grateful that Rewind was cheerful and upbeat enough that he had missed the impact it had had.

//Sparkling. Well, if you're a giant robot....// He was still glowing a little, having made it home in time for the birth, even if he hadn't gotten to stay long. At least his wife had the rest of the wives to lean on. "I just want you guys to know we're here for you. If this war is going to spread, it might be best...." Lennox was still kind of confused at being designated as the primary liaison officer, but Colonel Sharp had said the order came all the way down from Defense Secretary Fuller, based on reviews of the initial contact. "After all, we've got to be as strange to you guys, as you are to us."

"You are not among the strangest species _I_ had encountered," Skyfire said, chuckling a little, "but I was somewhat well-known for my incessant curiosity about other species, especially other sentients." He refused to think about anything past that simple truth, after the news Rewind had given him. He could not allow himself that luxury, when his home planet was in such a state. "To most of my planet-bound brethren, you likely are. We must go quickly, if we are to reach them before trouble can spread further. My most forward compartments have been configured for use by beings of your size, it was not a serious modification. Please, board and -- your parlance is 'strap in'? -- and we will go."

"Knock her out of the park!" Rewind said with a grin. "Don't worry, guys. I can get _all the sports_ all the way to Cybertron," he reassured the team as they brought their gear on board, having anticipated the mission as a 'go'.

"That's what I'm afraid of," Epps told him, grinning right back though. He never would have thought he'd have found an alien, let alone one that was absolutely sports-mad like Rewind.

"I was never much of a one for our sports, Rewind," Skyfire said, "but perhaps you can explain the human ones to me?" He waited as they secured their gear and moved into the forward compartments, and then with polite flicks of his attention towards the air traffic control towers in the vicinity, he activated his scramjets and roared up through the skies, careful with the amount of intertia he allowed to pass into their compartments. Within minutes, he had broken free of Earth's atmosphere, and he switched his engines to their vacuum capabilities, heading for Cybertron with all the speed he had to spare.

"Oh there's so much more diversity in theirs! And the errors that get made make them even more exciting!" Rewind offered before giving a run down on some of his favorite sports so far. It would not be as long a trip as with their own vehicle, but there was time to spare for getting to know each other. 

++++

Ratchet knew what Prime's energy requirements were, and once he had that plus a margin of error, he went looking for his leader. The big mech was in quarters in an older part of the city, and was not alone. In fact, the first thing Ratchet saw as he entered was Ironhide and Chromia, back to back, hands on personal weapons, and their ankles crossed as the only entwined part of their bodies. Beyond them, he saw Prime, and almost frowned. When Ratchet had gone into stasis, Elita-1 had managed to make Prime go on as well, but with a promise to join him. Where was she?

As Ratchet stepped more into the chamber, the mystery was solved. Elita-1 was not small for a femme, but few were large in comparison to Prime. Apparently Prime had laid down with his arm propped up just so, and now Elita-1 was curled in front of him, shielded from view, and stasis locked beneath that sheltering arm. It was enough to make Ratchet savor the scene for a long moment before he brought the energon over to begin awakening Prime.

Ratchet crouched next to them, one hand on Prime's broad upper arm, carefully feeding the energy into his Prime's frame, connecting into Prime's systems as he began to come out of stasis.

::Ratchet...:: the medic's intrusion was semi-familiar, welcomed, and caused Prime to settle easily enough. He remained stationary, running the energy to systems that most needed it, without taxing long dormant circuitry.

::You know, that's what I linked in for,:: Ratchet said, chuckling in soft amusement as he helped make certain Optimus came up out of stasis without any stress, ::you _could_ let me do my job...::

::As if you, my friend, are any better when you need assistance?:: Optimus sent to him, before letting Ratchet take over that so he could uplink directly to Teletraan. He needed a briefing, and the sentient computer system was the quickest way to achieve that.

Ratchet chuckled again, low and soft, and kept at his work. "Bumblebee's done us proud, Optimus," he said, before Prime could focus completely on Teletraan's information.

Optimus could not help but feel a surge of strong emotion at that. Bumblebee was one of their finest, and Prime enjoyed hearing proof of that. He focused on the download of information, letting his processors sort through it all.

+++


	3. Don't They Know There's A War On?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Megatron's a bully and Prime's...Prime.

Megatron finished listening to _Nemesis_ 's analytical recount of the situation, absorbing the data into his powerful processors with a low and annoyed growl. There were many highly useful portions to the current situation, he was pleased to have learned. However, with Jazz's sneaking programming of the planet's hunter-droids, the Autobots had had access to a far greater portion of the ambient energy of the system than he would have desired.

That made the question into 'what are they doing with it?' -- and that was a vexing question indeed. He never expected any Autobot to be sensible, but the logical course of action would have been to wake a mech powerful enough to destroy Rumble as swiftly as possible, and then attack Kaon while the Decepticons were in a vulnerable position, still resource-starved and the city's defenses still dormant. He snorted, and movement beside him caught his attention. Rumble, looking up at him curiously. He glanced down to shake his head at the symbiont, unwilling to share the momentary amusement of deciding yet again that the Autobots were nothing like worthy opponents. Frustrating domestic vermin, the lot of them, excepting only Prime.

The obvious fact was that the scout had not been wise... so which version of foolish had he been? 

Had he chosen to spend the energy drop by drop, waking each small mech he could reach and powering their minor weapons, turning Iacon into a glitchrat's nest? Even rats had teeth, when there were enough of them, and though _he_ would fall to no swarming horde of minor Autobots, he could not say the same for the Decepticons he had online. His systems craved the sudden rush of combat, craved release from the ages of disuse, and his Spark burned for an _end_ to this infuriating resistance, but he would not lose his elite to a swarm of the smallest Autobots, if he had other options.

There was also the possibility that the scout had hoarded that energy to awaken the city defenses, and only one or two of the giants of the Autobots; possibly Prime himself, or Megatron's old enemy Ultra Magnus, or the Prime's personal defender Ironhide. Or Jazz, for his innovation, but Jazz had relatively little power, better suited to his sneaking tricks than an outright fight. And if Bumblebee had chosen in that direction... they were capable of mounting a defense against what he currently had.

Skywarp had served him well, and his report of the amount of energy available such a short distance away was enough to make Megatron's never-ending hunger worsen. In addition, that planet held another possible resource... a long-lost Cybertronian of some kind, if _Nemesis_ read the distress signal correctly. One of them, lost here? Megatron would have preferred to dismiss it, but the long eons of the war had taught him that any change in the situation akin to the arrival of a new player was one best faced with open optics. There was nothing to do about it right now, however, they would see who or what that signal came from as soon as they reached the planet in more numbers.

\-- and thinking of numbers... 

He hummed a single, low note, and ran calculations through his processor. He would prefer to have Soundwave active, bringing with him his array of symbionts, or Thundercracker to control Skywarp's witlessness -- yet. If he was to breach Iacon, in this situation, before the resource disparity grew any worse... he prefered to test the city's defense with mechs that were not his most capable. He thought that over, and made his decision. Ferak, one of the Hunter-Seekers Starscream so disdained for their inelegant, flattened spherical lines, and Runabout. With only one of that pair active, and his primary goal to test the defenses and raise havoc, even Runabout's psychotic destruction should be controllable.

"Rumble. Use _Nemesis_ , find Ferak and Runabout. They're going to test Iacon's defenses."

Rumble gave him a slightly agitated glare, but he muted it quickly; yes he wanted his Soundwave back. He wanted Frenzy back too. He wasn't used to this slagging silence. "Megatron," he protested, "Frenzy and I can take Dumblebrat!"

"No doubt of that," Megatron agreed, his mouthplates tightening as he looked down at the aggressive symbiont, arching one optic ridge in 'and did you have a point?'

Rumble grimaced, and he buckled down to do as told, but he was going to find some way of getting revenge for being passed over like this. Somehow.

"It's not the scout that concerns me, Rumble," Megatron said, deciding to soothe that ego now that he was obeying. "It's which tactic he's taken to gain reinforcements."

Rumble snorted dismissively. "Like he thinks," Rumble said, but he understood, and applied himself to finding the pair as quickly as he could.

++++

Ferak was not pleased to have to run with this particular partner, _or_ that they did not have the support of his trine, but Megatron had promised them it would be easy. Only Dumblebrat to contend with once they got past the guns, or at least that was all that could be confirmed. Sure enough, as they approached the city, they could tell that the stupid Autobot had wasted energy on rejuvenating some of the city instead of his allies, as the guns began tracking and firing. The thing was, they were only firing sporadically, which told Feral that they'd have an easy time getting in close.

"Stupid 'Bots can't even make a defense!" Runabout cackled. He fired toward one of the guns right after dodging a laser that had fallen just short of the mark. That had unexpected results, as the guns went ominously silent for a moment. The next sound the Decepticons heard was one that scraped at their very Sparks; metal sliding off metal, accompanied by a sickening crash.

"What was that?" Ferak demanded.

"Who cares?!"

The pair continued on, approaching the gap Devastator had battered in the walls, prepared to force whatever repairs the Autobots had made wide open with the explosives and acid they were carrying. The closer they came, the more their Sparks were shredded by the creak of metal, an occasional snapping sound, like spars breaking, and the grind of metal on metal, heavily. Ferak began to wonder just what their Leader had set them up for as they found the door they wanted. Both grinned, shaking it off, just before a booming voice was heard.

"Warning! All who enter Iacon will be immediately under a no-departure quarantine. Warning! There is an alien-devised virus weakening structural integrity at work! Warning! Do not enter the city if you value your frame integrity! Warning! Corrosion virus at epidemic levels!" The warning boomed over and over from various announcement ports, each passing on a fragment of the whole message in a cacophony of words against those ominous squeals and creaks they knew now to be breaking, or already broken, metal.

"Slag that to the Pits," Ferak ground out, turning with an eye to retreat. "Let it eat them to pieces, and steer clear!"

Runabout started forward, sneering at the other 'Con, until a loud hard shake of the ground announced something very heavy sliding free and settling. Then he took back toward Kaon at his fastest speed, Ferak flying right above him -- until the Hunter-Seeker outpaced him.

Inside Iacon, Bumblebee took the report that the pair had run, and shook his frame out from the difficult task of pushing over a wall that had been rigged for just that purpose. ::Ratchet, we did it!::

::At least for now. Good thing for us that Megatron's learned to be cautious of Iacon, I guess.:: Ratchet knew the bluff would not hold, but no Autobot scorned any time bought through a clever ruse. ::I'm going to be sure to tell Jazz all your clever sound effects helped us out.::

::Aww, Ratchet...::

++++

In a tower that was as neglected as it was fortified, a lone mech rested in stasis. None would willingly try to reach him, for his defenses were creations of his insanely paranoid processors. In addition, he was not thought well of by most of his own kind or his allies, despite his own swaggering opinion of himself. Until Megatron grew tired of being unchallenged, he would be left to sleep in oblivion.

Except...there were bonds that denied the fate chosen by those around. As one Spark neared the roaming planet, the mech's stasis was intruded upon, pressed into finding the last ergs that could be called upon.

Despite all of his promises to himself on the trip between Earth and Cybertron that he would be strong, that he would not give away his reactions in front of beings who he so badly wanted to think well of him, Skyfire could not keep the quiet moan of sorrow and grief entirely hidden from his passengers. He hoped that they were distracted by Rewind's sports broadcast, as his wide-range sensors gave him a picture of Cybertron that was nothing like the gleaming, brilliant golden home he remembered. The whole planet, far as he could see, lay dark and shuttered, entire cities -- whole in his memory -- lay in blasted ruins, seas evaporated by violence...

Surprisingly, on some levels from his observations, it was Andropov who reacted to the soft sound of distress, by laying a hand directly on the bulkhead before he made his way forward, past Seaton and Lennox where they were discussing children and wives.

"Hello, Andropov," Skyfire said, very softly, as he navigated towards a suitable landing field within Iacon's broken dome. Rewind had warned him, had given him the history of the war... and still nothing had prepared him for the physical sight of the ruin this obscene, insane war had made of his home. How Starscream, who loved Cybertron as much as he loved anything outside himself, could have been such a crucial party to this _madness_ was beyond his comprehension... what had _happened_ to his mate, in his long absence?

"It hurts you, to see this?" Andropov said, looking ahead. He remembered losing his home, remembered the flare of pain that went with seeing _Mir_ lost to the stars.

On the planet, the mech cried out softly, still locked in stasis for the most part, too drained to do more than react to the pulses firing in his Spark, the pain of another being that had once been the other half of his center of the universe.

"It doe -- " Skyfire's words broke off at a flare of sensation and awareness from far below: _Starscream_. There and beloved, real and present on that awful, aching and empty link. Even with everything Rewind had told him he could do nothing but reach back, throw what of his energy could be transferred along the bond to Starscream -- little, so very little, nothing like what it felt as though his partner needed -- ::Starscream?:: "--it does. Cybertron looks... so broken..."

Andropov settled in the seat there, running a light hand over the blank console. "War is unkind. In all ways."

::Skyfire.:: Broken sensations, stasis-bound thought of death-dreams filled the space between them. A knowing sense that Skyfire could not be here, that Skyfire should never be a part of who he was now rode under it as the mech in the tower struggled to bring systems online.

"It is," Skyfire managed to say, though almost all of his attention was captivated by the feeling of Starscream struggling for function, the knowledge carried on that bond that Starscream thought he must be dead, that he could not -- should not? -- be here, and he wanted nothing more than to soothe that, to reassure Starscream that of course he was here, that he loved him, that everything would be all right. Without Andropov right there, he might yet, but there was that slight weight on his seating, small fragile being that must be protected, and he was told more than enough to know that Starscream would not agree. It wrenched at his Spark to be less than honest, but he brushed all of his love down the bond, ::Shhh... shh, you are exhausted... rest, love. Shh...::

Starscream, soothed as no other could hope to do for him, despite knowing in the base part of his processor that it was not real, for Skyfire was lost to him for all time, subsided, his systems tripping relays built into the lab to begin its own energy siphoning, to feed him as no one else would.

Skyfire felt him drop back into stasis, and breathed a sigh of relief and pained regret. He almost wished he could be in mech form, to give his helm the sorrowful swing this so richly deserved. A sudden hail came to his attention, and he routed his voice to the compartment Rewind was in. "We are being hailed from Iacon, now, Rewind. Come and speak?"

"Yes!" Rewind parted from his friends and rushed forward, his little face bright with hope that it would be Blaster, because he missed his partner so badly. ["Iacon City, this is Rewind! Inbound with Transport Class designation Skyfire, and allies,"] he reported on a secure Autobot band, and waited to hear who replied, broadening the band out to include Skyfire. He had to drop the security, unfortunately, but they were getting closer all the time.

["Welcome home, Rewind,"] came the rich, powerful voice of Optimus Prime. ["Skyfire... I take it you have been gone a very long time. I wish there were a better welcome to offer you than this."]

["I have been,"] Skyfire answered, as that deep, powerful and steady voice stroked peace against his shaken neural circuits. There was something in the timbre of that voice that promised safety and security, like the gentle voice of a creator, or a trusted mentor, though he had never met this mech before. It was there, it was real, and the knowledge Rewind had given him of the history pushed him to trust in it, in him. ["It... is what it is. And despite everything... I am pleased to be coming home."]

["Perhaps, Skyfire, we can yet find a way to save Cybertron, with your experiences and our new position in such a system,"] Optimus Prime offered with true, sincere hope in his voice.

"He's so...him," Rewind said in awe, softly and off the shared comm band. Andropov raised an eyebrow at him, and he grinned. "Our leader is awake. The greatest Autobot ever created."

"Sounds like a good thing, if we are to make deals for our world," the Russian said.

["I do not know how much help I can be,"] Skyfire said softly, but that voice pulled at him to be as much help as he could, to do, and give, as much as he had, ["but I will try. Cybertron _must_ be saved, it is our home. I will be setting down momentarily, unless there is some reason I should not?"]

"What's going on?" Lennox asked, drawn by Rewind's hasty rush to the front.

["Permission to land is always yours, Skyfire."] Optimus gave his trust implicitly, for he had no reason not to, and Rewind was aboard as proof of Skyfire's worth. ["I will meet you."]

"We are going to meet their leader," Andropov said. "Who is something of a cross between a messiah and Ded Moroz, to judge by Rewind's good cheer."

"Well, he did save us all, and he does try so hard to make us all feel uplifted!" Rewind agreed.

["Thank you. It will be good to meet you. Rewind has said... very much of you."] Skyfire dropped, bleeding off altitude, and touched down with all the delicacy he could manage on the wide decking plates of the great plateau, his sensors looking for the Autobot leader's tall form.

Lennox gave the small 'Bot a curious, amused look, watching with a feeling of total surreality as the shuttle he was in dropped straight down to touch back down on the decking he'd left a few weeks before. "Nice landing, big guy..."

"Thank you," Skyfire said. "The atmosphere density is well within parameters for you."

"That is still the strangest thing, given what you told of your planet's history, Rewind," Andropov said, even as he prepared to disembark.

"Primus makes it that way. No matter how we wander, the atmosphere is only moderately corrosive, and supports combustion." Rewind was unbothered by the strangeness of his planetary anomalies.

"Primus, dude?" Epps asked from further back, slinging his gear over his shoulder. "Getting religious on us or something?"

"Primus is Creator, the Maker of my people," Rewind said. For the Americans, who had served in various situations where religion was all important, Rewind did not sound like a zealot. Odd as it seemed to them, they could hear that he was merely stating a fact as simple as two plus two equals four.

"So he is," Skyfire said. "Though he is long said to be sleeping, or even departed, Primus made us in the image of those he knew from his travels in the galaxy."

Andropov looked from Rewind to one of Skyfire's bulkheads, and then to Seaton, shrugging slightly. "Looks as though humans are not the only ones that believe... what is your Christian saying? 'In his image?'"

Seaton shrugged a little. "Don't look at me, Andropov... but I can just imagine what a fuss that's going to cause on Earth eventually."

Figueroa shook his head as he helped haul their gear back out of Skyfire, almost groaning. "I don't want to, thanks all the same..."

Rewind lent a hand, helping to move bags and weapons. "Why would it matter? Primus made us as First Creator. No other species is his," he said.

"There are worlds I have seen where the species' creators are not viewed in such factual detail, Rewind, and some make claims that they are the only one, through those who follow them," Skyfire said, attempting to aid in ending the confusion by using his experiences. It had been a very long time since he'd been able to teach, or ask questions. "From some of the media I sampled, is it such on your planet?"

"Hole in one, to borrow the little guy's expression," Epps said. "I don't pay much attention, but everyone's got their own opinion on who started it and how it ends."

Further discussion was forestalled as a very large blue and red and silver mech strode across the way to meet them as they unloaded the last of the gear. He radiated a quiet presence that made them all pause and look at him. He was larger than Bumblebee, but nowhere near as tall as Skyfire. Unlike the visible mouth of all the mechs they had met so far, this mech had a shield over his lower face, not completely unlike a physician's sterility mask, just made of silver metal.

Rewind smiled, almost vibrating in energy, and the large mech casually brushed a hand across the small symbiont's helm in friendly greeting. He was proud of Rewind for rising to the challenge, and flicked that pride down a secure link at the small one. He then looked at the humans, taking a knee to be less imposing with his size. "Greetings, Captain Lennox. Major Seaton. Warrant Officer Figueroa. Sergeant Epps. Colonel Andropov. My name is Optimus Prime, and I welcome you to Iacon City."

All at once, Lennox got the impression of a statesman who actually gave a damn about his place in the people's hearts while keeping them safe in the political halls, as something about the mech struck a cord in his mind. Andropov found himself liking the mech when he was never certain he liked anyone but himself. And Stamper, but Stamper was now dead, so it was okay to like him. The rest of the team were put at ease by the mech's attempts to not be overwhelming.

"We're glad to come back, Optimus Prime. Now, if you'll excuse us, we need to suit up to get the big guy here emptied." Lennox wasn't one to put formalities before duty, and Optimus Prime rose to work as well, indicating he was quite at ease with that thought.

"By all means," Optimus said as he moved towards Skyfire. 

"I did not want to say it on an unsecured channel," Skyfire said, "but we brought fuel... well, it can be easily made into fuel, at least. They have been using nuclear fission as a power source, and therefore had built up a significant supply of highly unstable materials that their technology could not yet dispose of." He opened his cargo doors as Prime neared them, politely dropping his ramp.

"Thank you for your discretion, Skyfire." Prime let his hand rest on the shuttle's frame for a long moment. "And we should have no trouble converting a laboratory to perform such tasks."

In short order, Lennox had everyone suited and ready to unload. Their friend Bumblebee came out while they were still suiting up, and started to help, as did a mech that was not introduced in the hurry to unload.

Skyfire waited, keeping his attention on what was happening through sensors in his cargo bay, until all of the barrels were removed, and everyone was well clear of his transformation space. "One moment," he said softly, and let himself have the slow, meticulous transformation his system wanted after the flight.

Optimus, who had transformed long enough to call the load-box of his alternate form, had helped move all the barrels into it. Now, before shifting down to the cargo-hauler, he appraised Skyfire, amazed at how tall he was, even though he had, at one point in time, been quite familiar with the transport class. He nodded up at the large Cybertronian with appreciative regard for the pristine lines of his form. "It has been some time, Skyfire, since we knew one of your class. It is said that many merely chose to journey the stars, rather than face the war."

Skyfire knelt down, folding one leg under his frame, and considered that information thoughtfully. His class hated violence, more often than not... their sheer size tended to instill a certain degree of caution about moving through worlds predominantly built for much smaller beings. To have been caught within the violence of the war Rewind had spoken of, to have seen so many friends and wing-mates and co-workers torn apart by violence born of what seems _madness_ to him... He found himself understanding, entirely, why many of his class had made that choice. "I... can understand that choice. We are not a very war-like class. But... I think I am very needed here."

Optimus reached out, laying a hand on the larger mech's frame in sympathy. "Thank you, on behalf of Cybertron and its people who wish to see peace and healing," Optimus told him with firm conviction.

Lennox watched the exchange, curious; this was not a set-up that worked within how he thought things ought to go in a military, but the history Rewind had shared said the red and blue mech had been a rally point for a shift in the war to a more even stance, from the sudden and furious early Decepticon successes.

"I saw enough worlds that had been harmed by war, before the polar storm that trapped me on Earth," Skyfire said softly, shifting his frame into that strong, steady touch, "and... I saw Cybertron, as I came in. I cannot do anything _but_ help you, and still face my conscience, later."

"Skyfire..." Optimus said, slow and soft. His Spark ached for Skyfire having to see that as his welcome home. The leader of the Autobots drew himself up into an erect, proud bearing and gave the larger mech a sharp nod. "Perhaps this new system is hope for us all." He then moved toward his load-box, transforming into the hauler so that the radioactive waste could be moved to the energy refinery.

"Perhaps," Skyfire said, very softly, and watched Optimus move and transform, before he looked to Rewind. "Rewind... will I be able to reach the refinery? I would like to help..."

"Oh yes." Rewind smiled at his new friend, nodding. "Metroplex had to be able to reach that part of Iacon, so we did manage some shifting of the obstacles." Attempting to make wide enough spaces for the city-former had been difficult, and trying to camouflage him before they all went into stasis had been worse. 

"I can give rides," Bumblebee offered to the team.

"As will I," Ratchet said, curious about the new species.

"You," Skyfire said, looking to Bumblebee, "I know must be Bumblebee, Rewind told me of you. Hello." He turned his helm, looking at the broad, pale form of the a medical professional, and tipped his helm slightly, "But I am sorry, I don't believe I can recall your designation, if it was mentioned..."

"Oops. Dropped the ball," Rewind said, turning his head away sheepishly.

"Possibly because you have the good sense to not need me often," Ratchet said with an amused nod to the symbiont. "I am Ratchet, and technically the chief medic of our side of things. Once the containers are stowed away neatly, I would very much like to get to know you, and aid you in anything you require."

Skyfire tried not to show the flinch, and even managed to smile at the medic -- Ratchet -- as he spoke. These mechs -- and their allies, these small, delicate humans with such a fragile ecosystem supporting them -- needed his assistance, and of course they would be curious about a newcomer. He had stories enough for several breems, he was sure, even if trying not to mention Starscream by name was going to approach the hardest thing he had done in all his activated time. "I would be glad to join you," he said, attempting to mean it, though he much preferred the quiet of space or at least a laboratory.

Ratchet, it seemed, was perceptive beyond the usual medical mech in that he sent a very tight message to Skyfire. ::Mainly, friend, to be certain you have the most up to date specs, and have suffered no damage. I take my position serious.::

::Thank you,:: Skyfire sent, gratefully. ::I would appreciate a thorough overhaul, I feel as though I still have 'ice' crystals everywhere in my fine control systems, even though that cannot be, exiting the atmosphere creates more friction-heat than that...::

Bumblebee, in the meantime, had transformed and flicked his doors open, waiting to see who would join him this time.

Ratchet gave a small smile; he'd bet that this mech and Prowl would get along fine with that particular brand of literalism. Lennox, and Epps went to Bumblebee, with Epps patting the yellow vehicle's top. "Good to see you, man. No more problems from that purple guy?"

Andropov, Figueroa, and Seaton all made their way to the other mech, each introducing themselves, with Ratchet repeating his own name to them. He opened his doors, and they found seating within that was sized to ones like Rewind. That small mech also hitched a ride in Ratchet, as he really was not used to doing so much of his own mobility as he had since waking up.

Bumblebee waggled his mirrors, lifting off again. "Nothing serious -- which is scaring me, because we know Skywarp was on Earth before you got there -- the data lag is still a problem, but we did get that news, and he should be back by now, with enough energon to wake more 'Cons than we can 'Bots. Could, before the big guy got here, anyway... He's almost as big as Metroplex, and I didn't think that was _possible!_ "

"I'm not sure I care to see two of your big guys in one space for very long; I might get size envy," Lennox joked a little, trying to relax from a creeping tension building at the base of his skull. Something, and he had no idea what, was going to happen. He made himself push that away; it was Figueroa's job to get the ideas that all hell was breaking loose.

"So, the blue and red dude is you guys' C.O.?" Epps questioned. "Seems pretty... laid back to be a C.O."

"C.O.? ...commanding officer? -- I... don't think that means what it means to you, here," Bee says, after a moment to look through the data-files Teletraan gave him. "Optimus Prime is... _Prime_. He carries the Matrix, he's our Leader... Everyone says he came from nowhere, after the Overlord died, faced Megatron down on his _own_ , and then went to be a medic in the resistance, until the Matrix came to him..."

"Slow down, buddy," Lennox said. "Prime means first, right? Even for you guys? That would make sense. But ... 'matrix'? And he's a medic...or was?"

"First, yes," Bee agreed. "We translated our names as best we could into what they would mean to you. Prime is first, and... he is Optimus. Best, and most... and hope, too. _I_ can't remember before the war, I was just a sparkling when things went bad. But Ironhide, Ratchet, Kup... they all said that hope was something we'd almost lost, before Prime came."

Epps and Lennox exchanged a look. While they were fairly certain they were on the right side of things, what Bumblebee was saying was cutting rather close to the kinds of charismatic leaders that had popped up in some of the 'police zones' they'd seen through their careers. Still... Lennox gave a light shrug; something about the red and blue mech was calming.

"So you're the thing that flies but doesn't look like you can?" Epps decided to tease their first friend on this world.

"...No, I only hover... Real flight is for Seekers, slag all of them but Skyfire..." Bumblebee muttered. "Oh, and you asked about the Matrix, didn't you? The Matrix came from Primus, when he first made us. It... Prime doesn't talk about it, much. But there are stories."

Lennox looked like he'd love to hear them. "Whatever you think we ought to know, so we can work hand in hand with you guys to keep these Decepticons off my world," Lennox prodded.

Bee considered that a long moment, then made a noise of not being terribly sure what should be said. "Why don't you wait and just visit with Prime later? He knows a lot more than I do. He's going to be a little bit, with setting up the lab, but it shouldn't be long..."

Epps shrugged. "Sounds like a plan," he said, after Lennox nodded. That made sense... as long as they didn't come out of that meeting as raving adherents to the Cult of Prime.

+++

Rumble was very close to slagging off at least one or two problems where he had found them in his searching through Kaon's lowest levels. It would beat just... waiting. Ever since that pair had come racing back in being all hysterical over a metal eating virus, Megatron had been twitchy, Skywarp was more brainless than ever, and they just weren't getting anywhere on anything. It was driving the minicon more insane than being trapped in a small space with his brother. That was one reason to be glad when he spotted the burn of a decelerating ship against the atmosphere of their planet, silhouetted nicely. He filtered his optics, and was stunned as he started observing telemetry and specs that were impossible. With a loud yell over the frequencies and the air, he made for the command center, twitching at the chance for a fight in the near future.

Megatron had not been far away, and by the time the minicon reached the command center, Megatron was already there. "What, Rumble?" he asked, avoiding Soundwave's professional vocabulary despite its ease. A moment later, Skywarp displaced air in all directions as he 'warped in, drawing a momentary turn of Megatron's helm before he focused on Rumble again.

"Got a Transport-class burning in, tracking for Iacon City," he reported, tuning the long range sensors as best he could to verify his readings. 

"There aren't any left!" Skywarp snapped at the minicon.

"I got optics! It scanned as a Transport!" Rumble snapped right back, not giving an inch even when Skywarp came and loomed over him.

"Skywarp, stand down. Rumble, put it on screen," Megatron rasped, glaring at them both.

Rumble made another adjustment -- by kicking the access panel -- and the sensor data displayed on one part of the screen before the visual clarified, showing the sheen of friction, and the undeniable size of the largest Seekers ever built.

"Where in the slagging Pits did he come from?" Skywarp asked, wishing there was enough resolution for him to identify the lineage.

"That matters less than that trajectory," Megatron rasped, his optics flashing with white light as he watched the curve of that re-entering shuttle's flight bath, rage burning deep in his Spark. "The _Autobots_ , especially that medic, would never lure another mech down into Iacon for whatever it may be carrying," he went on at Skywarp's confused, belligerent look, "which means that "virus" that they heard was nothing but another slagging Autobot ruse!"

Rumble's jaw dropped open at Megatron's deduction, and then he pounded one hand into his other. "So, Boss, when we gonna hit them with all we got?" Rumble demanded.

Megatron looked down at the minicon with more battle-hunger than processor space, and began to smile a slow, infinitely nasty smile. He flung his voice out through _Nemesis_ 's relays. "Ferak, Runabout! Report to me in the command center _now_!" then switched his voice back to reaching only the two of them. "Right now, Rumble. It's time -- _past_ time! -- that we deal with this, before they have any more back online!"

Rumble let out a shrill laugh that would have made Frenzy proud, while Skywarp got a sickening grin of his own on. They were made for action, not this waiting mess.

"Dibs on the new guy," Skywarp said with a gleam in his optics about what salvage he'd get.

Ferak entered a little ahead of Runabout, both looking at their Leader with a hunger for more energon than they had been allotted. "Megatron?" Ferak bravely asked.

"There's a ship about to land in Iacon," Megatron rasped, his voice held to only a part of its full volume at first, the better to rise on his next words, "which means that you were fooled by Autobot tricks! When did _my_ army become so gullible!?! We attack now, before this situation worsens! All of you, take energon from the remaining stockpile, and then on to Iacon!"

Ferak flinched, and Runabout backed up, until Megatron offered the energon surplus. Both of them, along with the more senior 'Cons, hurried to do just as they were told, eager for the fight and hungry for the spoils of victory.

"We'll tear them apart this time, Megatron!" Runabout declared, once he could actually feel his full system at optimum levels.

Megatron nodded, his mouthplates curving in a dark, hungry smile, and ordered them out of Kaon. 

+++ 

Optimus Prime, Skyfire, and Rewind had finished unloading his trailer into the laboratory, and had just re-joined Ratchet, Bumblebee, and the humans inside one of the long-disused common areas Inside Iacon's great dome, when alarm klaxons began to shrill in the occupied areas. Teletraan's voice came over the speakers in the walls. "Seekers inbound, Prime. Also Megatron. Ground movement detected." 

"Activate all city defenses on the incoming side," Optimus ordered, his voice steady. "Captain Lennox, I recommend that all of you stay in here. Rewind, you are last defense in here. Teletraan-1, keep the battle on screens for them, so they know our status. Skyfire... should Megatron get the better of me, your priority is to take our friends here to their own planet," he ordered, though that pause had stretched on a few moments. He was not enjoying having to involve a new Cybertronian so quickly. "Ratchet, Bumblebee, flanking me." With his orders given, he shifted, taking up his trailer to roll out and meet the enemy.

Epps was frankly amazed at how the big guy had just -- shifted... from a laid back fatherly kind of guy into this calm, efficient commanding officer of the calibre he would willingly follow. He looked at Lennox, to see what, other than get their weapons out of their gear bag, they should do.

Prime hated having to roll into what would be a vicious battle with his primary scout and medic only. Yes, he would deploy the battle deck once they were in battle, but it did not assuage his guilt over the necessity of moving with only them, or of having to order Skyfire so quickly. And, while Rewind was as brave as any Autobot, he was not going to risk the symbiont to the better skilled Rumble. They had no choice, however, and he knew Ratchet and Bumblebee were as set in this as he was. Megatron could not be allowed within the Iacon walls again, not with so many of their people so deep in stasis. They **must** hold him outside, this time, no matter the cost. 

"Roger, Prime," Rewind said. "Somebody needs to help Teletraan with the guns, anyway!" He suited action to word, moving over to a terminal to jack himself into the computer's systems. The defense grid was all well and good, but it worked better with an actual mech handling it.

Skyfire moved after a few moments to study the images on the screens that had dropped and lit up inside the common area. After he had a short time to study the display, he began to speak. "I will return for you, if things begin to go poorly, but they will need assistance with that pair of my smaller cousins," he said, turning to look at the humans with a smile that he did not, at all, feel. His Spark ached at the thought of this, at the idea of being part of such combat, but... there truly was no choice.

"Big guy, you're not --" Rewind cut his protest off at the sad, steady look Skyfire turned towards him.

"I am not a warrior, no. But I was taught to protect myself and my partner off-world. This... will not be so different," Skyfire said, as he ducked his head to walk out. "Just don't shoot at me."

Lennox waited a few moments, until Skyfire was clear, then looked at Rewind. "How bad are these odds for you guys?"

"Better than they could be. Prime is usually able to go one on one with most of them, and his deck will help Skyfire up there," Rewind chattered. "I mean, they're coming close enough for me to use Iacon's guns, and that will be a _big_ help. I can probably make enough difference from here to help. But... normally, it's three on one for us to hold the line, for ones like Ratchet and Bee. Still... Prime's there." Rewind knew that Prime would move the pits themselves to protect everyone. "If I'm lucky and hit Megatron solidly, it'll be a home run for us, because he can't take Prime if he's injured."

Then another thought struck him, and he smiled brighter. "Maybe home field advantage will kick in for us too!" They sure had every reason to fight their hardest. Worry for Blaster, for Eject, Steeljaw and Ramhorn -- for all of their people still in stasis -- ran sharply edged in his systems as he spoke,.

"Thinking about evening up the odds?" Epps asked his C.O. in a low voice. "You, me, Figuroa? Let Andropov and Seaton wait in here?" 

"Yeah, I am," Lennox said, nodding over at his second. No surprise at all that they were on the same page about this one. "Rewind, we brought some pretty heavy weapons along; where can we set up that will work the best? It sounds like you could use a hand."

Rewind highlighted two access points on a pop-up map. "There!" he told the humans, not about to turn their help away. The three humans hurried to get into place with their weaponry, as soon as they knew the location.

As they rolled for Iacon's gate, Prime spoke. "Ratchet, Bumblebee --" 

"Prime," Bee said, as soon as he heard his name, love and affection and determination all thick in his voice. "We know. We've got to hold them. We're on it. It'll be okay." 

Ratchet made an ugly noise in his vocalizer. No point in Prime working himself up to give one of his speeches. Not to just the two of them. "Save it for when we roll back in, Prime!"

Outside, Skywarp dove low to drop Rumble off on the long bridge that stretched towards Iacon -- just as the gate slid open and the guns mounted at panels within the walls began to fire. He 'warped out of the way of the first shots, bouncing high. Ferak, flying as far from the pyramid-Seeker as he could, dodged low, instead. Megatron simply threw power to the shield that sprang to life on his forearm, and blocked the incoming shot, his optics focusing on the open Iacon gate. The scout, the medic, and -- "PRIME!"

"MEGATRON!" Prime answered, his voice a full, deep warning rumble. "We have a chance to make things right again, if you'd only cease these hostilities!" Even as he said it, he flung his trailer to one side of him, coming up and transforming in the same instant it did, his blaster rifle at the ready while the deck tracked Ferak.

Bumblebee and Ratchet both had known that was coming; he would not be their leader if he didn't still offer mercy and compromise. It wasn't going to do a damned bit of good... but Prime had to offer -- and what made him Prime was that he truly meant it. 

"Or you could cease your resistance and admit I am most fit to rule!" Megatron answered at a roar, twisting his arm to block another shot from the guns before he dropped down to the decking with a crash. He banished the shield to throw power to the cannon, though his first shot was aimed just past Prime at Iacon's still half-broken walls. He could see the marks of recent repair, but it was not the same quality as the dome itself.

"Dumblebrat's mine," Rumble snapped at Runabout, sprinting towards the other two -- veering well clear of where Megatron and Prime were about to crash together, "you can have the medic."

"The little one wouldn't be worth the grease on my axles," Runabout sneered, aiming for a potshot to catch the medic's path ahead of him, only to see the Autobot transform and leap above and forward of the shot to meet him with a waiting pulse laser.

Bumblebee's optics glinted. "Hey, Rumple, didn't you get enough aft-kicking last time?" He also came out of his car mode and into a solid stance to fire off three quick, low-powered bursts.

Prime had to pray the wall held where Bumblebee had repaired it, yet, just to be safe, his own first shot was to Megatron's shoulder, pulling up his inertia to steady for the shot. "You were never fit to rule more than a slag pit, Megatron!"

Skyfire went defensive on seeing that teleporting ability. His memory flicked back, remembering which lineage had boasted that ability most often. He carefully locked the surge of pain down, as it was a sidereal one to his... Not now. He focused, weapons charging, and shields at their max.

Ferak choked off the startled yelp at seeing the impossible sheer mass of a Transport-class suddenly in the air above Iacon, but he hadn't survived in the Seekers' hierarchy by holding back, and he snapped a shot at the stranger, dodging the first shot of the deck below. His shot bounced off powerful shields, and the Hunter-Seeker wondered if they were in trouble. But no, the Transports had mostly been peaceful... Skywarp bounced higher, away from the battle deck and the fight below, processors focused on the Transport-class as he took a shot of his own. It had been a long time since there'd been an enemy in the _air_ to fight that wasn't that slagging ex-gladiator, and he was going to enjoy it as long as he could.

Rumble snarled, slamming one piledriver down into the decking, sending a good, hard rumble through it to shake the pest.

Megatron snarled, though his shielding had blocked most of the shot, and rushed forward. "Which is why, of course, we held every city _but_ your precious Iacon before that long hibernation?"

Skyfire snap-rolled to one side, avoiding Skywarp's shot, releasing two distracting missiles that he normally would use to break open ore-rich asteroids for salvage and research. They targeted in on the Seeker above, letting him fire a blast toward Ferak as he righted himself in regard to the decking.

Bumblebee rode out the shockwave by bracing with his center of gravity low, letting his targeting track Rumble and reacquire a lock.

Prime had expected the shot to do little more than annoy his foe; this would be decided at close range, no doubt. "To hold, Megatron, is far from to rule!" He forged forward, blasting again at the decking in front of Megatron to make an uneven fighting surface.

Ratchet was struggling to stay out of hand-to-hand now, due to Runabout having closed the distance far more rapidly than Rumble, the big berserker eager for battle as always. The three humans finally had their weapons in position, and after a look at the battlefield, it was obvious that Ratchet seemed to be the one most in need of assistance.

Skywarp spat a Vos curse and 'warped straight down, attempting to break the missiles' locks. It worked momentarily, but then they re-acquired him. Ferak echoed that same oath a moment later, as that powerful shot seared across his dorsal surface, despite his shields, firing back. Shots from the city's defenses struck around him, and he decided he'd be better off close enough to the Transport that the guns wouldn't fire for fear of striking the shuttle.

"More Iacon philosophy better left for slag!" Megatron roared in return, exchanging his hand for his morningstar to swing hard at Prime.

Rumble snarled at seeing Bumblebee still standing, and pulled one of his blasters from over his shoulder, firing.

Prime did not waste time as he threw up a solid forearm even as he leaned back, so only the arm could be caught, flicking the free hand to the axe he preferred for close in fighting. "Perhaps, Megatron, if you had listened a little more, Cybertron would not lie in ruins from your mindless destruction!" he roared as he fought back with every bit of skill and force of sheer will he possessed.

Skyfire let the missiles keep Skywarp occupied for now, targeting the other flier with uncanny precision. In the past, Starscream would have taken any small threat that close to him... but now was not the past.

Bumblebee kept Rumble's attention with a few more well placed but low power shots as the ground stopped shaking. He wanted the little creep distracted, as three of the small, reformatted droids prepared to swoop in with a light and sound show that would do Jazz proud.

Epps and Figueroa set up the first shot, a mortar capable of making an Abrams think twice, and prepped to fire, timing it just as the vicious one thought he'd be in range of the medic.

"Hardly mindless," Megatron snapped, and then he was occupied with Prime, morningstar clashing against axe and armor as they fought across the broken decking, blows crashing off weapons and armor alike.

Ferak spat curses into the air as he tried to dodge the blasts -- and if it had only been the shuttle, he would have managed it. But every time he tried to swerve away from the shuttle's blasts, Prime's battle deck targeted him, and between the two, he was rapidly taking more damage than he liked.

Rumble closed in, shooting back at Bumblebee's joints and moving closer all the time.

Runabout howled in fury as an unfamiliar weapon knocked him backwards a few strides, powerful concussion shaking his chestplates, and swung his helm from side to side, confused.

Ratchet took advantage of that to fire again, hating his very Spark for using the knowledge of a mech's frame against him by aiming at high vulnerabilities to damage and disable.

The droids swooped in suddenly on top of Rumble, barraging him on three different frequencies with ululating noise and disorienting lights. In contending with those, Bumblebee, despite a couple of scorches from Rumble's gun, managed to bring a full power laser blast down on Rumble's left leg.

Prime grew silent as they contested, his powerful frame intent on winning, for he had sworn to never let Iacon fall. He was aware of the deck having to pause a few times, as Ferak was in unsafe targeting space. The unknown weapon was aiding his people, so he tuned it out. Then, with a precision that Prime would have to reward later, a city gun actually scorched across Megatron's back in one of their brief turns as they battled.

Runabout stumbled forward, roaring in fury, the pain just pushing on his need to destroy, and his massive fists landed a solid blow to Ratchet, sending the medic sprawling despite the damage warnings in his processor.

Skywarp had 'warped again, higher, and used the time to fire at the missiles and destroy them, and then dove in a straight-line, full-power burn towards the fight below, his weapons raking from tailfins to nosecone of the Transport class -- but those were heavier shields than he was used to the shuttles mounting, and his shots weren't as effective as they should have been. Ferak threw power to his thrusters and broke away from Skyfire, accelerating away from the fight until he could roll and fire down at the battle deck.

Megatron roared in fury and reared back for a moment, momentum of the morningstar failing for a moment as he stumbled -- and then swung the stilled, spiked ball straight forward, aiming it up under Prime's jawplates.

Epps and Figueroa used Lennox's spotting to fire the second load, this one scoring in the face of their opponent. One thing about them being so big, and the human weapons being smaller than what the huge mechs were used to facing; it allowed them a hell of a lot of accuracy.

Prime lunged back, swift enough to balance on the non-weapon hand long enough to thrust a leg out and kick to take advantage of his awkward position.

Skyfire kicked in his thrusters, moving out from under that dangerous course of fire and executing a flip that would let him bring his own cannon to bear on Skywarp.

Bumblebee staggered back some when Rumble lashed out, but the symbiont's mobilization was severely strained now.

The blast to Runabout's face caused the big mech to fall back, hands coming up to claw at damaged optics and sensor-sets, shriek of pain and fury ripping out of his vocalizer as he lost track of his target -- lost track of the world -- in the cascade of damage warnings. 

Megatron had only an astrosecond's worth of warning before Prime dropped straight backwards from the hip, bracing on his left hand and right foot to kick out -- the blow connected hard, sending concussion through his lower torso, throwing systems out of true. He snarled, deep and ripping, and slammed the morningstar hard into the engine vents across the breadth of Prime's frame, hand shove against his own battered plating for a moment. 

Ferak pounded fire down into the battle deck -- and then shrieked and threw more power to his thrusters to run away as the city guns turned on him as one and punched holes through his disk-wings. None of them were any use deactivated! 

//How the slag does a transport-class know how to fight like this?!// Skywarp thought as he watched that flip, then there was nothing to see but the guns and he broke and climbed, sensors out for the shot, hoping for enough warning to 'warp away from it... 

Rumble snarled, transforming his arms into the pile-drivers to shake the slagging scout up. If Boss was there, he'd already be back in his chest compartment, but there was nowhere to retreat to unless he put the slagging pest down, not with Megatron right _there_. 

Ratchet hated that he was about to take advantage of the damage done, but he focused past the medic to Prime's officer, and fired a solid shot that was enough to send the warning across that if Runabout did not retreat, the next shot would likely short out his shields around his Spark chamber. 

Skyfire tracked the transwarper, firing once, and plotting a mathematical probability arc for where the Seeker would emerge if he did avoid the shots, based on the 'warps he had seen so far.

In the city, Rewind was tracking the retreat, then turned his attention toward Megatron, hoping for another good shot that way. Likewise, on the walls, the humans were studying the melee between the two juggernauts, trying to decide how best to handle it, before Epps pointed Lennox toward Bumblebee's fight. It was the perfect chance to pay back their being saved on the first time, because 'Bee was getting the shortside of it, with Rumble amping up the juice.

Optimus grunted with the effort to not fall from his precarious balance, then forced himself to follow the weapon back up, ignoring his HUD for the moment. "Why do you fight, when Cybertron is all but broken from your aggression?! We could heal her, Megatron!"

That damage sent warnings wailing through his processors, and Runabout transformed to his more shielded form, relying on proximity sensors to turn back towards Kaon, cursing whatever that new slagging weapon was with everything he had. Running might still get him slagged, but possible was better than definite. 

There was the shot! Skywarp used his gift again, aiming for a point behind the shuttle, this time -- there was no way he was staying in front of that cannon!

Rumble shrieked as another source added fire, and looked for cover near the battlefield, his optics flicking around. 

The instant Skywarp disappeared, Skyfire allowed himself to release another missile, figuring the Seeker would appear close enough to become the heat source closest to the missile. At the same time, he executed a dizzying side spin, changing his vector, and climbing. Memories of playing tag... no, this was real and serious; no time to think of _him_ now.

Megatron registered his two lesser fighters retreating, that the guns on the walls had gone still for a moment, and silently cursed -- these odds were shifting rapidly, and that new weapon on the walls had his attention as well, what little of it he could spare from Prime. He looked across the little distance between them at Prime, spinning the morningstar into full use. "From my aggression, or your resistance, Prime? And where would you gain the resources for her?"

"There are ways," Prime said, aware of the morningstar, aware of the cannon, prepared to resist just enough to keep from being damaged but not enough to entice further battle. His tone was so confident, so certain that he had a way all planned out that he knew it would whet Megatron's curiosity, but also knew the mech would never actually understand that peace was necessary.

Megatron's optics flared white for a moment, interest making him cock his helm to the side, before his mouthplates curved in a lazily vicious smile, optics turning hungrily towards that small, rich, distant planet. "Yes... there are ways."

"They do not require violence, Megatron," Optimus said, his tone a warning that he would, no matter what, block any ideas of conquest in the direction of the small water-bound planet. He flicked a fall back command toward Ratchet and Bumblebee over secured channels, even as his battle deck awaited Skywarp's appearance to attempt a lock on him. Both his medic and scout kept their optics forward, but began the retreat, slow steps, back to Iacon.

Skyfire, likewise, was tracking for Skywarp, while the humans held their fire and took cover, just in case.

Both his medic and scout kept their optics forward, but began the retreat, slow steps, back to Iacon. Bumblebee accompanied his retreat with blaster fire intended mostly to keep Rumble at bay.

Skywarp dropped back into reality -- and promptly shrieked and 'warped to his max-distance out, on the other side of the city, as incoming fire from the battle deck, the guns mounted in the dome, and the warning klaxon of missile-lock all hit his sensors at once. 

Rumble dropped to the decking, behind a ripped-up piece of it, and detached both of his back-mounted guns to fire back. ::Boss...:: 

::Not. Now,:: Megatron snapped. Watching the Autobots beginning to retreat back into the battered safety of Iacon, with his forces scattered, made his engines near roar with thwarted fury, and he flicked the morningstar out of spin to snap the cannon around, calculating his trajectory in nanoseconds -- and the bright purple of his fire lanced across the battlefield at Prime's chief medic. "You say that as though it matters, Prime."

Fury ripped through Prime at that willful, spiteful attack on Ratchet, but his anser was not to push the fight directly. Instead, the battle deck turned its focus on Megatron, And Prime's optics blazed a deeper blue in anger. ::RATCHET?!:: 

Bumblebee swore inwardly with some words he'd picked up from Sunstreaker. ::Skyfire?::

::Incoming,:: the shuttle said, calm, but with a stab of anger that he did not know he could feel so deeply at such a ... cowardly, in his eyes, attack. He gave up the alt mode in mid-air, transforming and with full shields as he came down to protect and hopefully recover the downed medic.

The medic did not answer immediately, desperately rerouting power and fluid lines, shunting precious energy away from the mangled right side of his upper torso and right arm. He could only barely flick back a status of 'alert; damaged beyond fighting' to his commander.

The heavy fire from the battle deck forced Megatron to drop the morningstar for the energy-shield in his left arm, blocking the pulse fire, twisting the shield as he could to bounce the shots back towards the city. ::Rumble, fall back! Skywarp, retreat!::

::You got it, Boss!:: Rumble said, and started scrambling backwards, low to the deck. He didn't stop that low slide until he was well back behind Megatron's frame -- and then it was only to get to his feet and start running full tilt. One of them would grab him once they were away from Iacon, he just had to move his aft now! Slagging pits-damned Autobots!! 

::We should have slagging _had_ this!:: Skywarp sent in indignant rage, ::where in the Pits did a transport learn to fight like him?! Heading back for Kaon,:: he agreed, and 'warped again.

Optimus Prime did not move, did not even look to his medic, keeping optics solely on Megatron, blaster rifle ready, and the deck still tracking his nemesis. All he could do was lock the anger, the pain down and save it for later. Already, a vague plan of desperation was coming together in his mind, one for which he would need his own gladiator. Two planets' fates hung on the decisions he made in the next joors.

Skyfire kept his sensors out for attack or threat, but turned and used his optics to inspect Ratchet. He knelt, gently scooping up the injured mech to carry him within, while Bumblebee sidled closer to protect their retreat into the city. He would remain with Prime, until the 'Cons were out of sight...with all his shielding at maximum, in case of them coming back in.

"Hustle back down," Lennox commanded Epps and Figueroa, who picked up the weaponry and started moving.

Megatron curled his mouthplates, his optics flashing with fury, and his voice grated roughly as he spoke again, still deflecting the fire from the deck, before he flung himself into the air and threw power to his thrusters. 

"Resources come one of two ways, Prime -- you might be willing to sell our abilities to that noisy, messy species. I am not, and will not be!" With that, he twisted enough to truly take flight -- and retreat. **Again**.

Optimus Prime knew in that moment, the endgame had to be reached before Megatron could bridge the gap between planets. ::Bumblebee, I will need Sunstreaker's location:: he informed his scout. ::See to distilling the waste materials of the humans into energon, and learn the twins' location after.:: He turned to stride back in only once the Decepticons could no longer be seen, dismissing the battle deck into _nth_ space rather than transform for it. Ratchet did not have the time for him to take.

Bumblebee managed to bite off the whistle of apprehension, following up with a quick 'yes sir' and dashing off to do as commanded. It was not often that Prime was quite that decisive, and he wondered what the mech was thinking.

Skyfire followed Teletraan-1's signals to him so that he could reach medical. Ratchet was in bad shape, and his sensors tingled with apprehension at the energy residue from the cannon blast. He stepped into the medical bay and moved towards one of the tables, laying Ratchet out on the berth carefully. "I have some training, can I assist you, or would it be disruptive?"

"Prime...coming," Ratchet said, a little weakly. His offlined his optics, conserving that energy. "Keep watch...so he can be at peace..."

"I will," Skyfire agreed, his hand spreading over Ratchet's for a moment, before Prime came through the door and he moved out of the way, settling his back against a flat stretch of wall.

"Thank you, Skyfire," Prime said, before coming to Ratchet's berth, inspecting the damage, and getting the tools he'd need. "Offline, Ratchet... I will not be told how to operate on my patient," he said, forcing his voice to be calmer, more friendly than he felt like being.

Prime's tone was gentle, almost amused... and did not, at all, match the flame blazing behind the lenses of his blue optics, Skyfire saw. "What else could I have done?"

The medic made a grumbling noise, but did put every system into orderly shutdown so Prime could repair him without interference from his own instincts. 

"Many did not choose to resist," Prime said softly, before jacking into the diagnositc ports, so that he could better manage the repairs.

"Worse, many -- " Skyfire cut his words off, keeping the 'chose to _join_ that!' in the quite of his processor. Prime had far more important concerns at the moment -- namely, Ratchet's continued activation -- to listen to his personal sorrows now. "Can I help at all? Ratchet said to keep watch, but..."

Prime hesitated, looking at the big mech. "Are you drawn to science or engineering? Teletraan-1 is a good mentor, but it's not Bumblebee's strongest area. We need that energon as swiftly as we can get it, before Skywarp has a chance to replenish the Decepticons' supply," Prime admitted. "IF we are to protect two species..." His optics were troubled, and his voice was...weary.

"I was half of a scientific exploration team," Skyfire said, "and while I may not be as gifted with raw brilliance as -- my partner, I am not without skill. I can almost certainly manage the conversion of that fuel into something we can use."

"Primus keep you safe," Prime whispered softly, allowing his relief to flood his optics and voice both. "That would be the most help." He did not pry at the careful shifting of words, the tone, certain signs that said Skyfire's past had left a wound on his present. Later, once Skyfire had reason to fully trust him, they could talk.

"I will go, then," Skyfire said, and turned to do just that. His Spark ached -- but everything he had seen, from Rewind's historical account to the vicious fury and unprovoked brutality of the fight they had just escaped had more than convinced him that there was nothing to do but aid the Autobots in every way that he could. That he could aid not only in transportation and firepower, but with his scientific knowledge, was... more than welcome.

Prime focused intently on Ratchet then, pushing the fight, his plans, and the future firmly out of his processors. The only thing that mattered, right now, was saving his medic and long-time friend.


	4. Plots, Plans, and Planes

Optimus took a moment to get energon, a little slip, after taking care of the medic, and setting him into a deep recharge. He then went in search of Skyfire, to see how the processing was going, knowing it had taken a long while to repair Ratchet's damage. He was certain Bumblebee was seeing to the allies' needs; the scout was gifted in diplomacy.

Skyfire was in the refinery, keeping sharp optics on the complex chemical process that was in the midst of changing this 'nuclear' -- such an odd term, everything had a nucleus, what made this so special? -- waste into energon, but his sensors caught the Prime's approach and he turned, searching his faceplates. His expression was hard to read past the battle-mask covering his lower faceplates, but... his frame appeared relaxed, not drawn tight in the ways that Skyfire knew to look at for signs of grief or pain. "Is Ratchet... well?"

"He will be." Optimus studied this new ally, eased by how swiftly Skyfire had asked after their fallen comrade. "Though it may be some time before he can follow through on his offer to you."

Skyfire shook his helm, hand shifting at his side in a small 'no matter' gesture. "Of course it will be, he needs to recover. That damage was...." he was still disturbed by the energies he had sensed, the danger that lay in any weapon that could wreak that havoc so swiftly, "I am glad he is repaired."

Optimus let out a low, deep sound of relief. "So am I. He is our best medic, though not the only one." Optimus cocked his head to one side, looking up at the tall mech. "I would be willing, if you were not opposed to a mech whose medical skills are possibly a shade rustier than others, to make good on his offer. You have been in stasis a very long time, after all, from all you've said, and our own lack of records concerning your existence."

Skyfire's optics blinked in surprise, and he looked down at Prime in the next moment, his optics a little wide at the idea of the great Autobot leader spending the time it would take to work over his frame. "I... of course I would not object, from what I saw you are hardly 'rusty', but... do you not have more pressing matters? I can continue functioning -" he stopped, his mouth curving in a slow, half-laughing smile, "- but I suppose that was obvious, from earlier..." He gave a low, softly wounded sigh as he thought further on Prime's last words. //I suppose it is the fate of even most scientists to fade from existence in the span of eons, difficult as that is to hear. I had hoped to do something worth remembering...//

Optimus realized just how his words must have sounded to someone so long lost, and moved closer, hand reaching out to rest on that large frame. "Forgive me, Skyfire. I will point out that the Great Archives were mostly lost in the upheaval of war, and the data I can pull is limited."

Skyfire shifted his weight into the touch, leaning into that strong hand on his side, even as the idea of the Archives' destruction cut deep and brutal into his Spark. "That... is not so great a loss as the lives that have been extinguished... but it will be every bit as hard, or harder, to recover from... There is, by the way, nothing to forgive. You meant nothing but a remark on how long I have been gone. I find myself fond of the simplicity of the human time-idiom, and place it at nine and a quarter million years since -- my partner and I left Cybertron."

"That is a staggeringly long time," Optimus commented, remembering what he could of the time before the war, what it must have been like for this mech to awaken to such catastrophic tumult on their home planet. The peace they currently had would only last until one side or the other had awakened enough to bring it to full war, and this time a second planet of so many beings stood to lose from it all. "My offer does stand. I would prefer to not risk you, Skyfire, to the chance of a bad seal or poor hydraulics."

"I would be... very grateful," Skyfire said, almost instantly, smiling at him, relieved and pleased, though still slightly stunned. "Just point me to wherever would be convenient for you to work from."

"Is the processing to a point it only requires Teletraan-1 to monitor?" Optimus inquired. "I do not wish to remove Bumblebee or Rewind from our guests, but I also wish to take care of your needs swiftly, for your convenience."

Skyfire checked the system again, then nodded. "It is well on the way. So long as someone can reach it if Teletraan notices anomalies, there should be no trouble."

"Teletraan, keep Bumblebee informed of the progress here," Optimus ordered.

"Affirmative, Optimus Prime. Bumblebee and Rewind have taken care of his minor damage, and they are now settling the humans into one of the rec rooms for fueling and recharge."

Optimus's frame looked even more relaxed to hear that. "Thank you, Teletraan." He then looked at Skyfire. "I believe the triage center may be the largest portion of the medical repair center in Iacon, so that may be our best location, Skyfire." He was pleased the allies were being cared for, and wished to know more of this stranger who had aided them so ably.

Skyfire nodded, them smiled a wry smile, motioning towards the door. "I... think you should probably lead. It has been a very long time since I have been in Iacon, after all."

Optimus sighed softly. "With all we had to do to be certain that our members were safe here, it has changed even more, I suspect, than it ever had before." He did take the lead, though, cataloguing to himself where the ones he knew were sleeping were at, and promising he'd learn the rest later.

"I would not be surprised," Skyfire said, shaking his helm again. He walked behind Prime, noticing that the other mech -- who would be quite large in comparison to any other -- had a long, swift stride, one that did not make him have to completely mince his steps in order to follow him. "So much of Cybertron is in stasis that it almost feels... dead already."

Optimus shuddered violently at those words. "Not while I still function," was his quiet, fervent... plea? It was not arrogant enough to be a command, and certainly felt like a prayer more than anything else. "If we can just find some way to stop the Decepticon command team... we stand a chance."

"They must be stopped," Skyfire said -- but he could not entirely stop his voice from shaking as he said it. "What they have done to Cybertron cannot continue..."

"Easy, friend." Prime laid his hand on the other's arm again. "It is not solely their fault. We Autobots...failed. We bear as much blame as they do, for not having seen the need to change before it came to violence, for not taking stronger measures early enough in the war to prevent them gaining the upper hand. Megatron was not wrong that our resistance contributed to the destruction," Optimus said, attempting to be perfectly fair. He knew where the blame for the chaos lay, and it was not entirely upon the Decepticons.

"Perhaps... but what kind of life would Cybertron have, if he -- no, if _they_ , one mech alone could not cause this, no matter how simple it would be to blame Megatron alone -- had been allowed the tyranny he wanted to impose?"

Optimus Prime's optics glowed softly with compassion. "I never cared to learn, once I knew Megatron's avowed need for change was merely a guise around his unending ambition for conquest."

Skyfire shuddered slightly, and nodded. "I can not understand that ambition -- of course," his mouthplates tightened into a thin line and his optics darkened, hurt pulsing in his Spark at the memory, "I never understood ambition. Or at least, so I was _often_ told."

Optimus opened the triage area, leading Skyfire inside. "I was content, before the war, to only take responsibility for myself and those close to me," he offered, sharing a small piece of himself as an opening and invitation for Skyfire to talk more.

"That... I can definitely relate to that," Skyfire said, as he moved towards a berth that would hold his frame, and settled onto it. "I was always happiest when we were out on an exploration -- I did not have to be quite so careful, then. And I have never been particularly good at politics -- office, or otherwise, while St --" He shuttered his optics, taking a single shallow air-intake. He had already tried to evade his partner's name too many times, now it had half-fallen from his vocalizer and he would not insult Prime by so blatantly avoiding his name. "Starscream loved the challenge..."

Optimus came close, centered between the big mech's knee joints, looking up at his face with nothing but compassion, not reacting negatively to the name, despite all their time at war. "Rewind would have shared the history with you." He shook his helm slowly, imagining the kind of pain that must have brought. "I am sorry that it had to have inflicted pain upon you."

Skyfire's optics snapped open, and he looked down at Prime's face, something in his Spark wrenching at the gentle compassion etched there. "I... I can not _understand_ why he would _do_ this..." he said, and only realized afterward that his voice was a broken moan. "Yes... he was always ambitious, but --"

"...but how can any mech see this come from one they knew and cared for?" Optimus asked gently, hating the arrogant Seeker a little for having hurt this noble mech in his callous climb to power, even if Skyfire had slept through the actual doing.

Skyfire shuttered his optics again, shaking his helm slightly as the words tumbled from his vocalizer. "He is my _partner_ , we are a bond-pair, when trines and quatres are more common, and... I had never thought I would see a cycle when I did not think everything about him was beautiful, even in the moments I most wished to _shake_ him!"

Optimus brought his hands up along Skyfire's faceplates, cupping that hurting expression as gently as one might touch a Sparkling. "Skyfire. The war... changed all of us. Perhaps, in the fall into chaos, the flaws that made you wish to shake him were all he could tolerate in himself, faced with such a world as Cybertron was becoming," he reasoned, quiet and hurting for the transporter.

Skyfire dropped his helm slowly, strengthening that contact, his frame shuddering as he listened to Prime's words, trying to let them be something he could hold onto. "I... I don't know. He was always... vain, petty, ambitious... but he was so brilliant, so gifted, he knew _just_ what he wanted -- I admired that, even when I didn't understand it..."

Optimus wondered, in the depths of his Spark, just how the cockerel of the Seekers, the ever-present spike of annoyance that he was, had ever captured this gentle being's affections. But those questions were for other times, perhaps times when he could admit to his own foolishness in seeing one with ambition and mistaking it for a common cause. "He has had moments where we knew despair, because of his insights into the war," was as far as Optimus would go to admitting Starscream's brilliance.

Skyfire sighed, air pulsing hard through his intakes, and he nodded, just a little, against Prime's hands on his cheeks. "I... am unsurprised. I -- I felt him wake, as I came close, and I... he was so drained, so tired... I knew -- Rewind had told me so much of what he'd done that I... I told him to rest, that I was here now..."

Optimus considered that. He knew of lineages that had been torn apart by the war, but for bondmates to have chosen different sides was unusual. Perhaps... no, he could not even ask it of Skyfire, to exert such influence to try and pull Starscream from Megatron's side. Besides that, it would likely only hurt the transporter, given that Starscream was so mated to his ambition within the war's efforts. "Then, once he is awake, I will ask only that you, if you would, serve as a connection between us and the organic beings of the native planet in this system. I cannot ask you to take to the skies against the one you Spark is mated to." No matter how strong Skyfire had proven to be in the air, it was not a thing Optimus Prime could conscience.

"I..." Skyfire had to pause and re-organize his thoughts, "thank you. But I told you that I would help you, knowing that it would mean I must oppose him. I will not let him harm another planet, or its life. He knew better, once."

Optimus cycled air through all his intakes at once, because that... was the mark of more nobility than any but perhaps Ultra Magnus ever displayed in the course of doing what needed to be done. He was grateful, more than grateful, that this was the mech Rewind had found. "You have my eternal gratitude and support, Skyfire. Should you need anything, from supplies to just a mech willing to listen, I am here."

//Why are you grateful to me? You have been the one keeping our home safe as it can be, for all these eons I have been in stasis.... How could anyone do less, when these are our options?// Skyfire wondered, but he smiled just a little. "I will keep all of that in mind, and... I thank you. I... I do not _want_ to fight him, he -- " Skyfire cut himself off, drawing air through his intakes again, "but I will do what must be done."

"He is your Spark-bonded partner." Optimus lowered one hand, but ran the other back, as far around Skyfire's neck assembly as he could reach. "It is a very difficult place you stand in, Skyfire. And I give you my word to do all I can to prevent you having to test your need to help against that bond."

Skyfire leaned into the touch, sighing again, Prime's touch soothing down deep into his Spark. "The Autobots -- and I -- are very fortunate that you are here. I think few would be so generous, or so careful." He had seen planets at war before, and this kind of an offer, when they were so overstretched... well, Rewind was not wrong in what he had said.

Optimus shook his helm. "I only do as I should, Skyfire." He then stepped back. "Let's see how your systems are holding up, my friend, and be certain you're in the best shape possible."

Skyfire nodded and lay back on the berth, shifting all of his systems that he could into neutral and resting states, waiting.

Optimus Prime began the thorough diagnostic, his attention shifting fully into making certain that this new mech was in the best condition possible. He tweaked what needed to be tweaked, replaced a few minor servos, and generally managed to do the best overhaul he knew how with a gentle manner and careful touch. He had fuel for his processors, as he thought over Starscream, Skyfire, and this purported brilliance that Starscream had not shown in a very long time.

+++ 

In the room that Rewind had led them to once they returned from the battle, Lennox inspected their gear as Epps and Figueroa cleaned it, making certain that the unusual gravity and atmosphere hadn't affected them. Granted, both were so close to Earth normal that they weren't having any issues, but you never knew with weapons.

"That was a different fight than anything we've ever been in," Epps volunteered.

Lennox couldn't help but snort at that, looking over at his right hand with a shake of his head. "What gave _that_ away?" he asked, sighing afterward. "Little bit stressful -- but at least those bigger guys are easier to target than our usual problems, right?"

"So damn true," Figueroa offered. "They're huge, but that just lets us pinpoint better. If we get a feel for their structural weaknesses, we'll be able to help the big guys out pretty nicely."

"Not to mention protecting our own asses if they come to Earth again," Epps said darkly.

That drew a nod from Lennox, and a shake of his head a moment later. "I know Rewind showed us the holograms of Megatron and Skywarp and some of the others, but there was something about actually _seeing_ them.... what do you two think about this mess, now?"

"I'm a little more convinced there is a side to be on, and we found it," Figueroa commented. "The viciousness of that last strike..."

"Dog, that was -- so not Geneva," Epps agreed. They had all ducked down when the laser fire started hot and heavy, but there was enough of a gap at the wall there to let them catch the final action. Not that anybody could have really missed it...

"No, it sure wasn't... even just listening to the two of them -- it's not like I thought Rewind was exaggerating or anything, but he's involved, he's biased. Hearing them arguing --" his lips curved in a dark, wry smile, " -- is that even the word for what just happened?... I've got to say, no matter how much Bumblebee sounded like he's nearly religious about Prime, if _that's_ the other option... No way."

Seaton and Andropov had been listening in, having watched on the view screens while Rewind manned the guns -- the small mech had fairly come out of the link for cheering when he had hit Megatron -- and now Andropov cleared his throat. "Sometimes it takes having that much faith in a leader to go forward," he said. "History taught my people that at Leningrad."

"Point," Epps noted, thinking of a few times in the US's history. "And if that ugly bucket-head was telling the truth, that this is the last haven of the good guys... hell, we're in for a fight."

Seaton had to nod at that, too. "You're not wrong, either of you. It's not as though we didn't have a pretty good idea of what we were getting into, anyway, but seeing it like _that_... it's a little easier to pick a side. Something I noticed... did you see their ey-- their optics? I don't know about you guys, but that white-burning red was damned spooky."

Figueroa kissed his crucifix. "Like demons, they were," he said.

"Like something," Epps agreed. "It's pretty personal between the big guys."

"Yes," Andropov said, nodding again. "Very personal. But would it not be, with what they've said? And even for me, the Decepticon optics are... very wrong."

"I know the UN guys were still worrying about being aggressive and drawing down a super badass on our world...but after seeing that guy?" Epps began, thinking it through, "I don't think we'd have a choice. They'll hit us sooner or later. Just a matter of making sure we set the terms."

"Or get as close to it as we can, at least," Seaton nodded, "but yeah. There's no way they're not going to head back to Earth."

"Not when we've got what they want," Andropov counseled. "Who would have thought dirty fissionables would ever turn a profit for us?"

"Way I see it, it's a win-win for us to partner with our big guys," Figueroa said. "They're offering cures to our energy woes, a place to get rid of our trash we can't, and mutual assistance against the biggest, ugliest threat since the bomb was invented."

"I think you nailed it, man," Lennox said, looking from face to face to make sure they all still agreed. "Anybody got anything else you want to throw in?"

Seaton shook his head while Andropov looked thoughtful. He was feeling far more empathy for the giant robots now than he had on landing; but he was a survivor of the fall of the USSR and all its chaos. Figueroa shrugged and went back to stowing the gear, while Epps looked around the room.

"Gonna be a whole new game after we get this one put to bed," Epps did finally say, thinking of the world as it had been, and what it might look like after this was all over.

"Yeah... We've lived through how many 'things will never be the same' moments?" Lennox asked, turning his way, "but somehow... this one might top most of them."

"We'll stand up to it," was Epps' comment to that, always willing to keep Lennox's back.

Lennox nodded and leaned into his shoulder for a second, before wrapping up taking care of their gear.

+++

Skywarp shifted his seat under Rumble's frame on the way back to Kaon, getting the slagging symbiont's attention. Through his cockpit speakers, he said, his voice pitched low, "If you're looking forward to getting back any more than I am, your datatapes must be full."

"Slag-maker's gonna be looking for a pounding block," Rumble agreed. "Boss ain't awake to fix it."

"And 'Screamer's not around to _distract_ him," 'Warp said, flickering the lighting of his displays in a dark laugh. "Where the _Pits_ did that slagging transport class even _come_ from -- okay, okay, "Earth", obviously, but what the _slag_?!" Skywarp ranted, letting himself have one hard, furious jolt from nose to tri-wing tips. "I don't mean to be that pounding block, not when I stayed 'til he called the flight. He's probably right that that transport hauled energy in... which means we need another load fast."

"Hmm...you thinking about bouncing down for more...and with me being the right size, I can do the scanning and intel work." //And maybe break a few things too. What the slag were those carbon-creatures using?!// It certainly beat dealing with the Slag-Maker, and not having Frenzy or Soundwave to take refuge with.

"You're sharp for once," Skywarp agreed, and pulled up one of his standard 'warp routines, up to one of the stable points between the moonbase orbits. All he had to plug in was his exact location, and that he could get if he just slowed down for a second. From there, he still had communication lines to the _Nemesis_ \-- and he'd be nearly out of Megatron's fusion cannon range, that high. He'd at least have a few seconds to jump in the easier vacuum of space. His processors finished the computations in moments -- remembering to account for Rumble's presence took longer -- and he made the jump as soon as he had them, disappearing from where he had been flying just off Megatron's boot thrusters.

Hanging in the stable, light hold of the multiple gravities, he commed down. ["Megatron, you were right, we're still at a fuel disadvantage from that transport class. Going to do what I can to fix that. We'll return as swiftly as possible, my Leader!"]

Rumble wanted to laugh out loud, but kept his silence. That was bound to do things to Megatron's (il)logical circuits. He didn't mind at this point, anything that kept the Slag-Maker off of Soundwave and Frenzy was good with him. 

Megatron, for his part, processed the jump, then caught that comm, and his optics narrowed. Rumble had been with the Seeker. They were leaving him with just ... a growl rippled under his vocalizer as he commed back. ["Make it worthwhile, Skywarp, or else!"]

["Understood, my Leader,"] Skywarp answered, knowing when **not** to push his luck with the heaviest gun on the planet.

Megatron's processors whirled over the resources he had left, the likelihood of a counter attack from the Autobots, and who could easily be brought back to activation in the interim. Well, at least he could take a little pleasure in reminding the pair left to him what happened to willful cowardice.

+++

The rousing that had been the contact with his Spark's complement had never truly stirred the logic processors involved, for Starscream logically knew his mate to have been lost in a time so far gone that his survival was against every single set of odds in existence, no matter how often Starscream had demanded the universe give him back what was his. However, the slight awakening had been enough to trigger certain processes in the laboratory itself, including a hacking of certain protocols that were meant to insure his survival above all else. Energy was siphoned from several sources, pooled with that which had been collected during the roaming planet's travels, and fed into the quiescent Seeker.

Repair functions were initiated at a very deep level. Starscream's lifestyle as the Air Commander, and Megatron's constant foil for various versions of confrontation, meant that he had nurtured a very precise and carefully cultured variety of nanite droids in his system. They did their work, lubricating what needed new lubrication, repairing dry-rot where it had developed, and curing the few patches of oxidation that proved the planet had slipped through systems that had caused fluid to develop at higher levels in Cybertron's atmosphere.

Only once Starscream was in complete restoration did the laboratory protocols go to the next level, feeding energy directly to him so that he steadily rose upward from stasis toward simple recharge, and, eventually, consciousness. The entire time this was occurring, the laboratory was offered some privacy by two things. Soundwave was not yet conscious, and the _Nemesis_ had only limited resources to function with. That meant when Starscream came fully awake, he was, for once, in complete privacy with only his own thoughts and was safe from discovery for the moment. A quick scan told him that his trine bond was inactive on one side, and that the other part of it was at quite some distance.

However, there was a solid pull on his Spark that had nothing to do with the mech who wielded the power of a black hole here inside Kaon. No, this pull was ancient on his Spark, and real in ways that made the Air Commander incapable of thinking much past a meeting that had to happen.

::SKYFIRE!!!!:: Along with that shrill, tightly shielded word came a geographic coordinate, the place he would expect his partner to meet him at as he slipped free of the laboratory without disturbing more than he absolutely had to.

+++

Skyfire was still testing out the repairs Prime had made when the voice he would know anywhere rang with near-deafening intensity through his processors, and his entire frame shuddered in reaction, his jaw locking tight as his empty hands curled into tight fists, his broad wings flaring out from his back. Immediately after the cry of his name came a place -- familiar, out in the high mountain range nearest to Praxus, an old favorite of theirs.

Starscream's need and impatience were strongly threaded through the demand for a meeting. Only because Skyfire knew him...or thought he did...was he able to catch the uncertainty beneath that arrogance. Or possibly, Skyfire only wanted it to be there. History had painted such an ugly picture of the brilliant scientist that had been Skyfire's partner in all things, after all. Everything he had ever been demanded that he go... but everything he had been told insisted that he remain here, with these mechs that he could believe in and wanted to help. He forced his optics to re-open, and looked towards Prime, knowing that the warring demands of his Spark and his processors were likely written in his faceplates and his frame, trying to bring the right words to his vocalizer.

Optimus Prime looked into the face of a mech that was torn by conflict in ways that no mech should be. It hurt his Spark to see that, but Skyfire had to know, had to learn where he truly should be for himself. "He is awake?"

"...and calling for me," Skyfire answered, nodding once as he forced his frame to still. "I... I'm not certain I have ever denied him something he wanted in our entire time together -- attempted to talk him out of things, certainly, he's so reckless, but..."

Optimus shook his head. "Go...but be careful. The war has been unkind to many of us; why should it be any different for their side?" He brushed a hand gently along Skyfire's arm. "Perhaps...your return will give him reason to act in new ways." Optimus would hate to be in Skyfire's place, but the idea of accepting Starscream's word as a reason to do something...all he could think was losing his Spark-mate had tormented Starscream past sanity before the war even began.

That... Skyfire had not expected it, and he did not try to hide his relieved, grateful smile. "Thank you," he said softly, and started working out the fastest route out of Iacon. "I _will_ come back," he promised, looking into Prime's optics. "I will not leave Lennox and the others trapped here, and... he is wrong." That said, he turned and headed out, making his way quickly towards the open air.

::You must follow your Spark,:: Optimus sent after him. ::But thank you for thinking of our allies.::

::What do you do when your Spark doesn't know which way to pulse?:: Skyfire asked, before he very gently dropped the connection. He reached the exit and shifted to his alt-mode, climbing to his cruising height before he kicked in his powerful engines to reach his best speeds, angling straight for Praxus, leaving sonic booms in his wake as he broke Cybertron's sound barrier -- repeatedly.

Starscream had chosen a specific precipice, one which Skyfire would know well. There was plenty of room for them both in their alternate forms, with a sheer drop on three sides, while the fourth offered a sheer rock wall. Against this, the smaller Seeker had chosen to lean, optics and sensors scanning the skies and nearby areas, disgruntled at the sheer silence of a nearly deactivated planet.

Skyfire bled off his speed as he neared the peak, dropping down carefully until his landing gear touched the cliff face. He transformed once he was sure of its stability, and only then did he let himself look towards Starscream's unutterably beautiful, sleekly sharp frame. Despite himself, his Spark pulsed with joy and delight to see Starscream so close, heated with want and love and edged with amusement at that deliberately provocative, infinitely casual lean back against the cliff face. Starscream had always been that way, demanding to be the center of all attention... Everything he had been told faded, a little, with the sheer force of Starscream's presence focused on him, and his mouthplates had curved with his smile before he knew it. "Starscream..." he said, soft and low.

Starscream had watched the approach, listening to the thrum of those powerful engines, feeling the sizzle of energy building within himself as a reaction to it. Skyfire was beautiful, always had been, and time had done nothing to take that away. It was so much like Starscream's past stepping into his present that the Air Commander had to violently remind his processors of all the changes since that storm on that miserable planet in that out of the way system. His optics, however, could not hold a hard edge; this was Skyfire, his Skyfire, the mech that had always been worth him, worthy of everything Starscream could give him. "Skyfire," he purred, gentling his vocalizer away from the mocking pitch he typically used.

"Starscream," Skyfire repeated despite himself, the soft pitch in Starscream's voice and the gentled cast of his features pulling at all of his love for his partner, and he had stepped closer, and closer yet, before he managed to force himself still again. He made himself look at every line of his partner's frame, seeing the solid crimson of battle-crafted optics, the improved weapons, the almost invisible marks of recent repairs -- and most of all, the livid symbols marring the once-pristine lines of Starscream's stunning silver-white wings, "...what have you done to yourself?"

He had wanted his first question to be something angrier, something sharper... but it had come out instead with all of his bewildered pain.

Starscream felt that...and heard it more as disappointment, which gave him something to latch onto, a shield against his softer impulses where Skyfire was concerned. "What was necessary to insure my destiny, of course!" Still, even in that admonition, he could not quite keep his optics still, running over the crisp lines of the Transporter with an old hunger.

"...I thought you didn't believe in destiny?" Skyfire asked, even as his systems reacted to Starscream's searching looks the way he always had. Starscream was unlike anyone else he had ever known, brazen and willful and determined beyond all belief, demanding and whimsical and insistent... he had always been the perfect counter to Skyfire's own deep-rooted restraint and caution. "Wasn't it you that always told me the limitations of our designs could be slagged, for all you cared about them?"

"Yes, Skyfire, but that does not preclude the destiny I write for myself," Starscream said, as patiently as if he were teaching a Sparkling a basic truth of the universe. He opened his hand and indicated the wasted landscape beyond them. "All this...will be repaired, under my leadership, when the time is right."

"Your leadership? I... Starscream, I don't _understand_..." Skyfire said, turning to look out over the destroyed landscape for a moment before he could not take it and his optics snapped back to his partner, stretching his hands out towards him. "I don't understand what happened, I..."

"What happened was the culmination of the internal rot and stagnation of the Senate, Skyfire," Starscream soothed, reaching out to his partner with a demanding 'here-now-touch' emphasis in his body language. "Though, no doubt, you have received quite a different version, running around with those remnants of the status quo of that era..."

Skyfire had been following what Starscream wanted for eons, and his Spark hurt too much not to follow that familiar and demanding shift of his frame. He moved, took the last, long step between them and dropped down onto one of his knees, folding down enough to be closer to optic-to-optic, sensitive relays in his hands flashing the familiar joy of contact with Starscream's frame. He wanted to believe Starscream -- he had disliked many of the Senate's practices, been offended at the ever more stagnant hierarchy... but he could not believe Rewind, one time arena reporter and garrulously friendly mech, or Prime, with all of his deep grief and sympathy, or the so obviously young Bumblebee could have been part of the Senate's stranglehold. "...I thought it would be you that found me... I..."

Starscream could not hold against that. He pushed a gentle caress of his energies along Skyfire's frame, while his hand came up to run along that gentle...//he does NOT belong in this!//...face. "Oh Skyfire, how it should have been, but when I managed to return to Cybertron, the situation had...deteriorated." A snarl rose in his voice as he continued. "The Council of Science insinuated lies and they were believed! I could not access the resources to return for you, let alone protect our legacy! I had to turn to other means, other ways to gain the ability to find you once more!"

Skyfire pressed into the touch of Starscream's hand and energies, his frame relaxing despite every intention he had had on the flight over here to confront his mate about everything he had been told. Starscream in a fury and any edge of pain under his tone had always un-done any hold on his own anger, and he held just a little closer to his frame. He had never doubted, on any of their journeys, that Starscream would do anything it took to protect them both, and his last thought before the cold and the ice had forced him into stasis had been that this wouldn't be long, Starscream would find him -- so long as he survived. "I -- there has to have been some way that didn't wind up with _this_ , Starscream! I..."

"How?! When the Council, taking your absence and my return as reason to consign all of our work to oblivion stole every erg of influence I had at the time?! When the Senate could not be bothered to care one iota for a lost mech of our world?! They swore that even had you not been trapped on that freakish planet, you would eventually have vanished, as all your kind do in time, and that I should count myself lucky to have survived your whims!" Red optics blazed in remembered fury.

"...they _what_?!" Skyfire's optics flared wide and white, his jawplates snapping shut as his Spark blazed as sharply furious as he could ever remember being at the insult to his work, his partner, and the very idea of that insult to his dedication to Cybertron and to his mate. "I would _never_ have left you!"

Starscream leaned away from the rock and into his frame, voice gentling as he slid his digits along the back of that helm he knew better than his own. "I know, I know..." He drew in air to cool all his thrusters from the anger he had felt then, and in memory.

Skyfire slid his hands up Starscream's sides, then, sensors sparking and sizzling all the way through his processors and straight into his Spark with the joy and pleasure of his plating against his own, Starscream's voice that gentler tone again, the one he had only ever heard Starscream use with him, and he dropped his helm into Starscream's touch, nothing else quite as real as this, right now, especially with Starscream trying to soothe him, holding him that close. "Of course you know..."

"Just as I know where your Spark must fall." There was a sense of desolation behind those words. Skyfire could not be the mech that was Starscream's treasure, his hidden flaw, and choose the brutal ruthlessness of the Decepticons. He could never understand the pragmatic approach of forcing their race through this crucible of destruction in order to rise up, annealed into a harder, stronger race.

Skyfire knew his beloved far too well not to hear the pain and the desolate grief in Starscream's voice then, and he looked back at his partner's dimmed optics with instantly matching pain almost choking his vocalizer off. He had to struggle for speech, and it still came out a soft, almost disbelieving breath, "...Starscream?"

Starscream silenced the questioning with a fierce, possesive slam of energies all around the larger mech's frame, pressing a kiss to the sole mech that no one, not even Megatron, could take away from him in the long run. ::Steer clear of the battles where Megatron is on the field. Beware of Soundwave. Shockwave can be maneuvered into a logic box that he cannot escape.:: The private, shielded thought slid between them easily enough, as Starscream prepared for the future that would be difficult on them both. ::One day, I will rule. And you will be there with me, Skyfire.::

Skyfire could not help opening to that sudden, possessive flare of Starscream's energies against his frame, mouthplates opening to his partner's kiss, absorbing all of Starscream's words with all the faith he had ever had in him, even as Megatron's name made him shudder in negation and processor-crawling fear. ::He is terrifying...::

::Don't give him that much credit:: Starscream snarled. There was such an edge in the emotions surrounding that mech that Starscream was unaware how much he betrayed, even as he increased the frisson of energies along Skyfire's frame. ::You will do what you can to help them, but I will not allow that to count against you when I take the leaderships from that slag-heap and finally end this war.::

::I saw the damage he can cause, the... pleasure he takes in it, Starscream, how can you _follow_ that, he's...:: Skyfire shook his helm, confused and hurting, and pressed tighter against Starscream's frame, reading his partner's emotions with the ease of long practice at translating Starscream's whims back into something approximating Standard, sensing the complicated tangle of frustration and reluctant admiration, fear that Starscream would never admit to consciously, and over it all a hunger to surpass, to beat and overcome... ::I never understood your desire for power, you know that, I still don't, I...::

::You don't need to,:: Starscream said firmly. ::Leave it all to me, and we will come out ahead of them all, able to use what we know, the places we've been, to create a new Cybertron!:: He caressed a single digit along the support column on Skyfire's neck. ::Trust me to see the path.::

::I love you... but I **can't** stay out of this, Starscream, or let your Decepticons tear these planets apart any more... You know I can't...:: Skyfire said, even as he twisted his helm and neck to press into Starscream's touch.

::Give me time!:: Starscream demanded. ::Both sides lay in ruins, and resources are limited! I can do this, I can make an ending that works for us all!:: With his strong words came stronger caresses and kisses, his glossa exploring as eagerly as his fingers did.

::...when have I ever said no to you?:: Skyfire said, letting it carry his almost wounded sigh, even as he clung to Starscream tighter, answering every touch with his own, wanting, desperately, to believe that Starscream _could_ see some fair way out of this...

Starscream let that part of his demand fall away in the more immediate gratification of their desires, reuniting their Sparks with blazing cascades of energy between them in the remote, undisturbed locale that had always been a sanctuary for them.

+++

When John Keller -- the Secretary of Defense, when he was wearing his day hat -- came to visit with neither a simple announcement nor a full entourage, and the visit was being held in one's home instead of in DC or on a base, the officer being visited paid close attention.

General Morshower was doing just that, listening as Keller explained about the Alien Biological Units that had been encountered and the discussions held at the U.N. over their existence and this war they were involved in.

"While we had two of them on planet, with a third, unknown bogey, they were scared enough to promise aid, and coughed up nuclear waste that wasn't doing us a damn bit of good," Keller finally said. "Now..."

"Now there's no visible gun to their head, and they all have their own fights they want to get back to, sir?" Morshower theorized.

"Exactly."

Morshower shook his head, sighing a little, low in his throat. "Not that I can't understand that, but I saw the little bit of footage the Saudi government finally decided to share of their attack, and I've got to admit, sir, it made me pretty uneasy. Seems like a real bad time to stick our heads in the sand, instead of keeping our eyes out."

"Which is why I came to you, with a presidential mandate. A few allies are with us here, and you'll have a list of candidates to consider. I want you to build a front, a rapid deployment attack and defense squad, to learn and retaliate against future attacks. NASA has agreed to cooperate; since the Big Rock, they've had money to spare in their budget."

"Going to give me that first contact team once they get back again?" Morshower asked, not that there was all _that_ much doubt there. "Don't ask much, do you, sir?" he added, though he smiled as he did it, his mind starting to turn over how this was going to work.

Keller smiled tightly. "Lennox's team stays the liaison between the U.N.'s space agency, but unofficially, they belong to this new effort." He handed over the secured data and documentation Morshower would need. "The Kremlin is in agreement that our nuclear reserves may be used beyond the atmosphere. Rockets will be in the process of being redesigned to give the necessary boost with proper guidance modules."

"...who ever thought we'd see _that_ day?" Morshower asked, shaking his head a little in surprise. "China?"

"They want to capture one and dissect it, which might be useful, but they are uncertain on nuclear use." Keller sighed softly. "When the gun is pointed, I think the fact we and the Kremlin agree will be enough to sway those holding back."

"All right. I'll leave that to people with higher clearances than I've got, then, and just get on this," the general said, patting the pile of data -- then he looked down at it, sharply. "I know this is going to sound like I've been watching too much late night cable, but... how many people do we have looking at our security infrastructure? I know that's always been a weakness -- despite that we built the damned Internet -- here..."

Fuller looked faintly pleased. "I knew I tapped the right man for the job. I've pulled in a team of some of the best hackers out there, offering pardon if they'll find the holes and plug them."

"Which I'd know if I'd start reading?" Morshower asked with a quiet chuckle, nodding. "All right. Anything else?"

"Don't let us down," was all Keller offered before standing and holding a hand out to shake. "Some of the people in those files don't officially exist anymore, I'll warn you. They're used to the hidden line of defense, having worked counter-terrorism for a lot of their careers. All good men and women, though."

Morshower reached out and shook with his boss, nodding before he turned to walk back out with him. "Not the first time for that... probably not the last. I'll keep you posted."

"I know you will." Keller would slip back to D.C. with none the wiser, and Morshower would produce results. He had faith in that, given the man's track record.

+++

If Bumblebee were less accommodating and less cheerful, he might have been using some of the words he'd learned from the pair he was now seeking. Sunstreaker's paranoia must have kicked in before they went down, because they were not in the location that they had logged with Teletraan-1. Not that that had been a surprise, but Bumblebee had then had to try and think like the gladiator pair, especially the pushier Sunstreaker, to try and figure out just where they were. This had led him to having to move past the construction that had been meant to seal off the old, illegal, gladiator pits in the bowels of Iacon. It wasn't entirely that Sunstreaker didn't want to be found; if Megatron had breached the city, _he_ would have guessed this as Sunstreaker's place. And probably have met the former champion with glee. Which Bumblebee thought was slagging crazy... but it was Sunstreaker, so he still wasn't surprised. All Bumblebee wanted to do was confirm his theory, and then he could tell Prime. Because in Bumblebee's logic processing, he knew that only Prime was going to be able to wake up that dangerous mech without injury. Anywhere the pair of heavier, bigger mechs could get, _he_ could get easier -- with a very few exceptions. Now didn't seem to be one of those, and he wriggled his way down through the last of the obstacles -- seeing a splash of red paint up over his helm -- before getting out into one of the old stands. He looked around in the darkness, turning up the intensity of his optics, and started trying to track the two of them.

Probably only to protect Sideswipe's sensibilities, they were not down in the pit itself. No, a sense of irony must have gripped Sunstreaker, as Bumblebee followed faint traces of thinner dust in spots that indicated the pair had gone to the box where the 'official' would normally decide a close match. //This is just like him,// Bumblebee thought, shaking his helm as he got just close enough to be sure he really had found them. He had to smile just a little, when he did get optics on them. The pair were back to back...but Sunstreaker was closer to the entrance into the box, with Sideswipe slightly more guarded by his twin's frame. Bumblebee saved that image for Ratchet, even though he knew Sunny would knock a dent through his helm for it, and headed up. Now all he had to do was find Prime and tell him, so that he could get back to visiting with the little organics. They were fascinating to Bumblebee, with all of their variations and languages and what sounded like such short, bright lives....

+++

Bumblebee had checked with Teletraan-1 once he was back at surface level, and it didn't take him long to get up to Teletraan's main banks. He paused in the doorway, looking in at Prime sitting beside Teletraan-1's screen, quietly flicking down through what looked like model specifications... His Spark twisted at how sad Prime looked, and he made a low, quiet noise, before he spoke. "Prime? I found them..."

Optimus turned his helm that way, clearing the worry and pain from his optics to show polite inquiry. "Where, Bumblebee?"

Bumblebee went the rest of the way across the room and leaned, just a little, against the bend of Prime's knee as he answered, trying to give Prime at least a little comfort. He shook his helm before he spoke, snorting a little. "Not where they said they were going to be, of course. Down in the old arena... in the officials' box."

Prime had to snort softly; that made sense, if you knew Sunstreaker at all. //Wishing he'd find you, let you finish it, my friend...you may get the chance, very soon.// "Thank you, Bumblebee. I'm not quite ready to wake him, but I should be able to reach it." After all, he had the ability to traverse the Undercity without getting lost or running afoul of the mysterious energies down there.

"Any time, you know that," Bee said, smiling up at him. "Are Lennox and the others still awake?"

"They were settling to rest when I had finished with Skyfire," Prime told him. "You should recharge while they do so, as you and Rewind are likely less...shocking to them." He would need more of the minibots to help the humans, in the long run, in order to maintain good ties. Those that were so large, like himself, could be frightening.

First, though, he had to press through with his plans to keep their worlds safe, no matter how distasteful it felt to be planning what he was.

"He was _awesome_ up there; is he okay?" Bumblebee said, unable to keep from grinning at the memory of Skyfire's ability in the air. He would have thought someone that big would be clumsy -- and he was happy that he'd been wrong. It had been a long, long time since they'd had anyone except the twins that could take the Seekers on in the air. "I'll do that, I promise."

"He needed a few minor repairs from such long disuse of his systems, and I found a few security patches he lacked for his processors, but overall, Skyfire was in good physical shape." Prime would keep the secret of Skyfire's internal turmoil, unless the Transporter made it evident first. Not that those Prime considered his family, his elite, would be allowed to judge, but Prime would not expose Skyfire to needless anxiety.

"Good, good. I'm glad..." Bumblebee said. He was. He hadn't gotten to know the big mech yet, but he seemed quiet and kind and... very determined. In ways that Bumblebee liked, too. "Is Ratchet going to be back up soon?"

"He'll be up as soon as he finishes a recharge cycle, thank Primus." Prime would never forgive Megatron for that last attack, anymore than he could ever forgive Megatron for the initial betrayal of what could have been.

"Okay," Bumblebee nodded and leaned a little more into his leg before he headed towards the door to go and recharge.

Optimus let him pass out of sight, and then looked back at Teletraan-1. He was going to need at least Sunstreaker, and Sideswipe would need to be conscious to keep the twin from feeling unbalanced. He calculated energy expenditures, and looked at what was available. Once Skyfire's processes finished running, they would have more than enough energy for this, but still, they had spent a very long time being careful of their energy needs, and it was no habit to get out of. He knew he needed one other member for the strike, due to her unique gifts, but he would rather discuss the brutality needed with Sunstreaker first, and let her continue to rest; she had shouldered the burden after he had voluntarily slipped into stasis to conserve energy.

+++

Megatron stood in the beating pulse of air jets, letting the solvent-laden air strip away lubricant and hydraulic fluids and oils, peel away the damaged spots of his paint, and turned his attention back to planning against his foes while the jets did their work. Skywarp had already departed, and if he returned with a full load of energy -- which he had _better_ \-- there would be enough available to wake more of his most competent forces. His dental plates ground as he considered the sudden disadvantage the Decepticons were at, his spark blazing in fury. He had kept Ferak and Runabout active simply because he was not fool enough to waste the energy it had taken to bring them awake, but he would not have his mechs so easily misled again. They had nearly taken the entire _planet_ before this stasis, his intentions of using Cybertron as a base to take other worlds nearly complete -- and now Prime had regained an advantage, in the form of that unknown transport-class, and the energy he had brought!

Megatron only regretted that the medic had reacted swiftly enough to avoid a truly fatal blow -- he had still been white and red, and not the gray of full deactivation that he had hoped to see -- in the end of the battle. It would have been useful to rid Prime of his chief medic. With Ratchet removed, Prime would almost certainly have felt obligated to turn his own repair skills to his cobbled-together army's most dire needs, potentially removing him from the battle's front at critial moments. It would have been _so_ useful. But, no, the not glitched _enough_ medic had managed to pull himself through. And Iacon's defenses were certainly back to a level he hadn't seen in some time. He snarled again, glaring down towards the center of the planet under his feet, cursing their first Maker in a low, hissing rasp.

But no matter. He had built the Decepticons up from nothing, from the discarded debris of war and the dispossessed of every city -- losing a little ground was no reason to be discouraged! Simply reason to plan the next moves more carefully. Let Prime remain in Iacon -- or better, come to him -- it was little enough matter until that transport attempted to leave again. Skywarp would return, and then he would begin bringing the best of his forces back.

He reached out, shutting off the blast of the jets, and moved towards his waiting paints, the minor damage to his frame already repaired by his internal systems, making decisions as he moved. Reflector, for quicker, sharper optics, then Soundwave. Astrotrain for the ability to have a continual convoy -- he would be slower than Skywarp, but able to carry far more. He nodded sharply as he reached out for the first spraying tool, settled back into his frame after the momentary setback.

+++

Starscream had to be the first to leave. It was just the way of it; he was the strong-willed pushy one of the pair. As he turned back for Kaon, he cursed Megatron again, for the revelation of Skyfire being _afraid_ of the former gladiator. He promised vicious retribution in his own processors to Prime if harm came to Skyfire while his mate lived up to his gentle nature helping the idiots of the Autobot Army. Mostly, though, Starscream thought of his own future as he flew, trying to see the course to chart in the current power vacuum with neither side possessing enough in the way of resources to make a full win out of the opportunity.

One way or another, he would come up on top, and rid himself of the megalomaniac standing in his way.

+++

With Starscream's contrails still dying off in Cybertron's atmosphere, Skyfire pushed himself up from the stable face of the cliff and made sure that all of his plating had taken its pristine white hue back, his systems still running hotter than he would have wanted -- Starscream had always stolen all of his ability to be rational. He should have done better than to fall into his partner's grip so fully... but Starscream's words had left him with so many questions. There were things in them he simply did not believe, devastating as that was, and there could never be anything just or right in this kind of awful violence; but... Starscream would not lie to him, not outright. He transformed and flew back towards Iacon, hoping that Prime would be there when he landed. He had no right, but he hoped nonetheless.

Prime, for his part, had begun to worry...straining his sensors to their maximum range from the high landing platform. As soon as he heard the incoming warning, he made his way back to the inner platform, the only one large enough now for Skyfire. He did not want to appear to be overly preoccupied with Skyfire's business, but he had to know that the transporter was safe.

Skyfire dropped towards the landing platform within the open top of Iacon's dome... and his sensors registered Prime's presence with a deep flare of relief that cascaded through his systems. He touched down on the platform carefully, and rolled enough to center his weight before he transformed back into his mech form, managing to smile at him. "Prime. I am -- " he hesitated for a moment, "so very glad to see you."

Prime let a gust of air cycle through his induction cylinders at that. "I try to be where I am needed," he admitted.

"Then I am grateful that everyone else is well," Skyfire said, corner of his mouthplates curving in a wry smile. "I fear you may regret offering me that audio, before too much more time passes..."

"Why don't we go to your quarters, my friend?" He indicated a path that ascended. "Teletraan-1 was able to pinpoint a place that would accommodate your class, with full amenities," he added. He was offering privacy for the coming talk, and trying to show he had considered Skyfire's needs.

Skyfire's optics blinked, and then he felt the smile stretch wide across his mouthplates. It could not have been easy, in a city that had been built by and for the more domestic classes, to find quarters that were large enough for his size. "Amenities, I think, are things that can wait... but yes, that sounds... very good. Thank you."

It had helped, Optimus knew, that Teletraan-1 had repaired its knowledge of parts of the city by drawing on his own memories, and there had been a time when Optimus had seen Transporters often. They moved along, eventually coming to an area that had once been designated for the shipping companies to onload and offload space commodities. The quarters here, despite being protected now, had once been more open to the skies for the sake of the ones who flew. Optimus coded the room they reached opened, then passed the control of security to Skyfire.

Skyfire accepted the security codes and stepped inside, smiling again at the high entryway and the few furnishings that were large enough and widely spaced enough for him, and he moved towards a bench that would support his back without putting pressure on his wings, and settled down. "Please... anywhere you would like to sit," he said, spreading his hands out at the space.

Optimus nodded, and chose a place in the one...over-sized for him...chair to one side, its low back allowing him to place his arms along the edge to lean back casually. "Thank you," he said with genuine gratitude that went beyond the place to sit. It encompassed Skyfire's acceptance of his presence as well.

"You are welcome," Skyfire said, smiling again, trying to express that he meant far more that Prime was welcome anywhere he was than for the offer -- really, this was a gift he had just received more than anything else. He heaved a long, deep sigh, and looked across the space between them. "Starscream knew I would remain with you. He's... not happy, but -- he knew that I would stay with you, and he's _still there_!"

Optimus Prime found his world's logic stray sideways from the path he understood. That Starscream would accept that choice, and not react in fury, destructively even, was so different than anything Prime had ever understood from the Air Commander. "That is...exceptional, from my point of view," he said honestly.

"He was always that," Skyfire said, his voice soft, before he thought, and his head shook once. "But... that is not what you mean. I... still cannot understand. He... seemed not to want to talk," the words came slowly, and before he finished them he could feel his cheeks heating, his optics turned away from Prime's expression, "at least, not after he had warned me away from Megatron..."

"That...is a beneficial warning." Optimus shook his helm. "Megatron...is the single most dangerous threat to Cybertron, for all he sees himself as its greatest ruler." Blue optics were shadowed by memories. "As for Starscream not talking...you must have a very strong pull on him in ways that none of us could fathom, for typically it is his voice making grand pronouncements that we hear," Optimus continued, with a hint of humor to the words to lighten Skyfire's mood.

Skyfire had to laugh, warm and open, at that comment, his optics shining for a moment. "He has _always_ made those -" the fond memories blended with the brutal reality, and his expression fell. "He still is... He seems so convinced he can find a way out of this, that he can change the course of this whole war. I don't understand how he can - follow someone he hates so, fears so... and yet so admires, in such... paradoxical ways. I _know_ he thrives on chaos, but even for him, this is..."

Optimus let out a heavy noise of understanding. "I was once where he is," he said quietly. "Megatron holds so much charisma to the uninitiated. I thank Primus you could see his true colors, rather than risk him trying to pull you to his side, even temporarily, through that charisma he does have...or perhaps did. It has been vorns since we saw it."

"You?" Skyfire asked, turning back to face him fully, stunned. He had been very busy with his own struggles in the air, he had caught only the edges of the battle between the two leaders... but from what he had heard, and seen in Rewind's history, that seemed -- unlikely.

"Leaders, despite what the Autobots believe, do not appear from thin air. They are made, forged in fires hotter than any I would see any of my people go through, if they can be spared it," he said softly. "Once, I would have followed Megatron to the ends of the universe, believing he thought as I did, that there were ways to improve the lives of us all, and throw off the stagnation of our kind."

Skyfire leaned across the distance between them at the sound of that pain, extending his hand to a shoulder at the idea of this mech having been put through the pain that a re-forging like the one he spoke of must have been. "...that is almost certainly what drew Starscream, given how viciously he spoke of the Council and the Senate over what happened in my -- absence..." Skyfire murmured softly. "But Megatron does not believe that... not from his words, not from anything that I was shown..."

Optimus shook his helm. "Gathering the dispossessed, feeding their slights and insults, fanning the waves of anger to fury? They were tools. And when I refused to take the next step for the path it walked upon...he saw fit to cast me aside, having gained what he needed through my cooperation to that point," Optimus said. "He has done it to others through the war...many disposed of by his closest conspirators in the early days of the war once they had no more use, or chose to block his true goal." Optimus accepted the touch, leaning into it for a long moment before he could speak. "He seeks to make Cybertron a conquering power, with himself in command of it all."

"So I had gathered..." Skyfire said, keeping his hand on Prime's shoulder, holding it with just enough pressure to be felt without any possibility of harm. "I... never have been good at seeing through masks, or knowing where the pretty words were actually blades in the back. I... always had Starscream to see that kind of attack coming."

Optimus considered that. "He was likely quite adept. His plotting has typically been so straightforward as to easily mitigate its effect on us. Unless..." He shook his helm, reminded of any number of events. "There are times when his competency blinds us all to the real thrust, I should point out."

"He was..." Skyfire said softly, then looked at Prime curiously, wondering what he meant by that, how it had happened.

Optimus's optics glowed softly in chagrin at himself. "Starscream, when he is fully irate with Megatron or one of his fellow lieutenants, is adept at masterminding a way to pit us one against the other in such a way as to leave him with clear advantage. But only when his pride has been sufficiently pricked, it seems."

"Starscream's pride has... always been his motivation, almost as much as his ambition," Skyfire said. "That sounds... very much like the kind of thing he used to do to professors who had irritated him with something."

Optimus startled, then nodded. "Hard to imagine him young enough for school. He already led Vos before I ever heard of him."

"That is still so bewildering to me..." Skyfire said, shaking his own helm. "Though it makes more sense with what he told me... if my loss made the Science Council turn against him as much as he said, and he could not find any way other than politics to gain what he wanted..."

Optimus leaned in, listening, trying to understand more. "Skyfire, while Starscream has done things that I personally find abhorrent...if there is ever to be peace, there must be a Decepticon Leader willing to settle into truce. Everything you tell me, could help that become a reality to work toward."

"He means to lead them, certainly," Skyfire said, giving another slow sigh. "I... will do anything I can to help you end this war. Starscream might be reasonable, he is occasionally capable of it. He said that what had happened to Cybertron was the result of the Senate's rot, that when he made it back without me -- I still don't know _how_ , he was never designed to make that long a flight without refueling, but if anyone could do it it _would_ have been him..." He tried, too late, to choke the loving pride out of his voice, but that Starscream had made it all that distance back to Cybertron alone still amazed him. "I'm sorry. He always could distract me -- that when he made it back without me, the Council put out lies about what had happened.... I have to assume they wanted to believe he'd abandoned me, he was... not popular, and I was... well, the complimentary version might be 'teacher's pet'? He had meant to come back for me, but with the Council blocking access to the work we had done, and the Senate retaining its' usual apathy to anything off the planet... he could not."

Optimus winced, and let it be shown. "Fools," he pronounced. "On both sides, for many reasons." He reached up, laying his hand against the one touching him, turning kind optics toward Skyfire's faceplates. "I wish peace. More, I wish to protect the system we have wandered into. Teletraan-1 says our inertia is dying away, that we may wind up captured by the primary here, which will necessitate making certain we do not cause harm, and that we are stable. That requires cooperative effort, as I have very few who are capable of flight, let alone space, without significant redesigns that we have not the resources for."

"I... did not start that part of the argument with him... yet," Skyfire admitted, dropping his optics away. He knew that he should have, and yet, with Starscream promising to make things different if he only had time, with him saying that he meant to _use_ what they had learned on other planets to help Cybertron... "It seemed as though he had called for me as soon as he awakened, and if he does not yet know... I want to believe that he means to make things different, if he can remove Megatron -- perhaps it is foolish. He obviously followed Megatron's dreams of galactic conquest before the stasis here..."

"That is a possibility we must consider." Optimus's words were heavy with regret. "Enough Sparks have been lost!" he swore softly.

"More than enough," Skyfire agreed. "Too many Sparks, too many chances, too much of our history and our very _planet's_ life..."

Optimus nodded, his optics dimming considerably. "Cybertron slips further from us with each battle." He felt the pain of that, nearly as much as he did all the mechs and femmes he could name who had died in service to either side.

"There must be some way," Skyfire said, looking back to him. "I will try."

"That is all I can ask of anyone." Optimus let his hand fall. "Skyfire...don't put yourself in danger over this. Starscream may wish to protect you, but until he knows he can...you will be at risk from the place he is trapped in. Megatron has an ... affinity for your partner that makes what you do dangerous in itself."

"Starscream would deny that anything can trap him," Skyfire said, but he nodded slowly, taking Prime's words to his Spark. "I will be careful, but I will help you."

"Thank you....from the core of my Spark," Optimus said with heartfelt empathy for the difficult place he had just put Skyfire.

"I could not do anything else, and be myself," Skyfire said, shaking his helm once, slowly.

//And Starscream knows you so well as to know you would... could he too see this as a chance for unification?// Optimus stood. "Should you have need of me, just call. Teletraan-1 has all of our private frequencies, and knows I deny no one."

"Thank you," Skyfire said, nodding. "I... do need recharge, I think. But I will wake, if you need me."

"I need to check on Ratchet, and other things," Optimus admitted. "Rest well, my friend."

"And you, when you reach it," Skyfire said, standing to let Prime back out, before locking the door and moving towards the berth to lie down, properly supported, and allow his systems to fall into a deep, quiet recharge.

Prime paused to consider how strange it was to nurture a hope that depended on Starscream, before going back to the main base.

+++


	5. Even Robots Are Cute In Love

Starscream had time on his side as he overflew the war-torn landscape. He had helped destroy these cities. His early alliance to Megatron had brought many more Seekers to the Decepticon side. He had led them, had hunted the infernal Autobots and bombed their havens until they holed up like cyberrats in Iacon City.

Iacon, which should have been their own victory, dating all the way back to the initial declaration of open war, yet Megatron had lost it somehow. That had been where the Prime had risen, casting the Decepticons out, and in all the vorns, the Autobots had held it. It made Starscream's gears clench in rage.

Yet... did he truly wish to still remain with Megatron? The most recent actions of the war had been bumbling failure after failure, in Starscream's reasoning. Even the fight to stop the Autobots from slinking off into space had failed to deliver a decisive victory.

Perhaps, Starscream thought, it was time to re-order the way of this war. With that in mind, he turned his flight toward the Vosian ruins, taking refuge there for the time being, to consider how best to use Skyfire's appearance, the resources flooding his sensors with data, and that curious chatter on the various wavelengths.

+++

Skywarp hung in the cold of vacuum between this planet and its natural satellite, tucked behind one of the big communications arrays, engines off and his shielding as thick as he could hold it. "Hang on, twerp, I've got to balance that pressure before I crack the seal, or you're not going to like the result."

"Teach your flight instructor to dead-stick a landing, why don't you?" Rumble snorted, glaring at an instrument panel. "I fragging know about pressure and release problems."

"Slag off, or I will not let you back in," Skywarp grumbled, not really liking the sensation of flushing atmo out of his cockpit. He felt the space seals coming into play, and was reminded, again, of why so few Seekers of his class liked space. Give him a planet any time, with gravity and currents and electromagnetic fields instead of the whispering touches of photons and no sense of true up or down.

Rumble made a set of dismissive clicks and waited until the seals opened and he could hop out and drift the minor distance between Skywarp and the satellite, his servos shuddering with the sudden, agonizing cold. ::Hate this part,:: he sent over the comms, ::this is for the slagging bird-brain.::

::Not really my favorite place to be either, rust bucket. So get a move on, and do what you gotta.:: Skywarp was at least taking the time to get more readings off the planet, to decide where to strike.

::I'm on it, I'm on it,:: Rumble said, and popped the tools he needed to get into the satellite and take it over. He hadn't bothered translating that chittering slag coming across the airwaves before, but now it's useful, and he ran the old translation programs on this new stuff so that he could figure out exactly where the richest of those resources were down there. He was not the _Nemesis_ , but this was easy enough, once he bypassed their clumsy, slow encryption codes.

Skywarp watched the little annoyance work with one set of sensors, while keeping another set on the planet's primitive eyes in the sky. A third set was dedicated to detecting any passive or active scanning, while the rest worked on mapping the visible side of the planet. Too bad the planetary orbital was a dead rock; it might have made a good staging area otherwise. And in time, it still might, Skywarp thought, with a malicious avarice, imagining conquering the wet world beneath.

Rumble let a triumphant burst of static cross the comm line as he got into the system, and data streamed across his sensors, information running in a cascade. That biggest, brightest land-mass below was probably their best bet for energy and he focused his processors on creating a list of proximity targets, wishing he had some of the others here to help compile the data faster. He came back out of the data-surge after half a breem had passed, making a low, vaguely impressed noise across the comm as he started the quick flight between the dumb satellite and Skywarp, dropping back down in to the seat. ::Got what we want. Found a high-pressure gas line down there,:: he added the coordinates for the line, ::crosses through some empty, which'll make it easy to get more.::

It took a moment for that to process, and Skywarp gave a rebellious buck of his frame even as he began shifting the atmo back around to pressurize evenly through his frame. ::That means not fragging the lines,:: he whined, wanting to cause some mayhem and destruction.

::Hey, this is _me_ you're talking to. We raid 'em until we can't haul or cache any more, and _then_ we frag the lines,:: Rumble sent, insulted.

::Oh.:: That made Skywarp a lot happier to hear, and he recalibrated for short jumping. Stupid panets with their revolutions and rotations making vectors a little more tricky than straight line jumps....

//Glitch-ridden vapor-sucking,// Rumble thought irritably, shaking his helm before the stars disappeared from around them.

++++

Morshower was asleep when his cell phone rang on a particular ringtone. He picked it up, listening to the hurried words on the other end, even as he hurried to get a uniform pulled on. A few rapid fire questions, and a little in the way of direction to confirm orders that had been implemented in his absence, let his team know that their leader was ready for this challenge.

Morshower had never been so glad for the end of the Cold War as now, because he was going to have to help run this fight from a teleconference line with the Russians and Ukrainians both actually there on the ground. 

"Bastard's going to learn he picked the wrong fight," he muttered under his breath as he grabbed the keys to his car so he could get to the base.

+++

Ratchet's processor flicked immediately from recharge to self-diagnostic. It was not a slight toward Prime's skill; it was just his own medical paranoia kicking in. However, he could not find anything save a small time lag in his memory banks, consistent with the trauma of such a strike. He was one of the very few mechs in either army that could now claim to have survived the Slag-maker's own weapons. "Teletraan-1, update?"

"Humans and most of the army in recharge. Prime is the only one not in recharge, though he is off my direct sensor capability currently."

"...what's he doing off your grid?" Ratchet asked instantly, sitting up on the berth.

"Hypothesis: He has gone to where Bumblebee reported the twins were," Teletraan-1 offered. "He has not, by his proximity detector, left Iacon." The sentient computer system was well-aware that had been a possibility for their leader.

Ratchet grumbled, shaking his helm. "So where in the pi -- oh. Oh, those two glitch-ridden... Teletraan, remind me that they both need a thorough diagnostic, just as soon as Prime doesn't need them," he said. It didn't take _that_ much to figure out at least roughly where the twins were, if they were under Iacon deep enough that Teletraan couldn't keep tabs on Prime going to them. "...wait an astrosecond, Teletraan, why is he going after the twins now?"

That hadn't been in anything they'd discussed...

"Unknown." Teletraan-1 was not aware of the full plan, though the questioning of Kaon's layout that Prime had done earlier was a small indicator. However, Ratchet had not asked a question that would allow that information to be volunteered.

Ratchet flickered an irritated optic at the nearest of Teletraan's speakers, and then got to his feet. "Skyfire's status? I got a little distracted from giving him that diagnostic he needed..."

"Prime performed it. He has returned and is in recharge in quarters near the old shipping district." Teletraan-1 ignored the glare; he was accustomed to it.

"Yeah, those would be big enough, wouldn't they? Returned? -- oh, never mind, Teletraan, I'll get what's been going on from Prime once he's back." Ratchet shook his helm. "Is the energon conversion process done? Must be, if he went to get the twins."

"It is complete. He has been running computations on various combinations of whom to bring up from stasis." The computations had been precise, and combined with the plans of Kaon, said that Prime was considering a frontal assault, which was a relatively unused tactic in the Autobot army in the more recent campaigns.

"That doesn't surprise me," Ratchet said... and a momentary, devious impulse struck his processors. He started to push it away -- in the middle of the current disaster was no time to be devious -- but... "Has Elita-1 been in those computations?"

Teletraan-1 brightened, noticeably. "Yes, she has. He has struck off a number of individuals in his computations to keep her on the list."

"Well, well. All right, then," Ratchet said, and headed towards the lab. "She'll be a nice counter to our 'Sunshine's' ever-so-cheerful presence, when he gets back up here, if I do this right..." he added, letting his vocalizer hum cheerfully.

Teletraan-1 held his opinion on that. All the computer system wanted was to be certain there was one upper level officer who would be willing to argue Prime out of any noble self-sacrifice...and actually stand a chance at success with that.

Ratchet went to get the energon he needed, and then transformed to make the trek back down to where Elita-1, Ironhide, and Chromia were in stasis.

+++

Skywarp was too busy funneling energy to notice the imminent threat...or too arrogant, given his size. Rumble, however, noticed incoming chatter on the comm bands around them, chatter with harder encryption, and his sensors registered vehicles -- dumb machines, but relatively large and incoming. He spared a second to ran tactical details through his processor and threw a sudden, sharp comm message to Skywarp. ::Incoming natives.::

::So?:: Skywarp wasn't done, and he had shields...granted they weren't best. But against these squishy things? Yeah, he'd figured out the first time that they weren't worth leaking energon.

::Did you see what happened to Runabout? Yeah, I can shake them up fine, but if we don't get that energon back to Megatron, you know we're both slagged, so put a move on it!:: Rumble sent, as he moved around Skywarp, pretending not to know there was anything going on. He listened to the chatter, keeping his audios tuned to the movement of the vehicles until they were closer than he wanted them to be -- and then he transformed his hands into their massive piledrivers and revved his spools, sending the first of his powerful shakes into the too-soft ground under them, following it with another and a third. He grinned in vicious satisfaction as the ground split open in a jagged gash straight towards one.

::Slagging nuisance,:: Skywarp sent, whether about Rumble or the oncoming organics was up to interpretation. He did cap off the source of energy he was hogging as Rumble started his action, and transformed sluggishly to his mech form to scare them off. 

All the human vehicles and chatter suddenly went silent in a coordinated effort as a canister of some sort was fired between the two robots.

::What the slag is --:: Rumble threw his sensors at the canister as it started to flash, and binary profanity spewed across the channel between the two of them as he recognized _exactly_ what that was, ::pulse generator!:: he threw, and dropped every system he could spare into shutdown.

Skywarp was a little slower...weighted down with raw energy fluids...and threw his spare power into enhancing his shields in hopes of protecting more vulnerable systems. Pulse weaponry wasn't unknown on Cybertron, but with shielding being the way it was.... He grunted as the wave lashed out, flowing though him, and then his energy fields crashed, overpowered by his sudden shift into them just as the wave connected, resulting in him being stripped naked of his defensive shields.

::SLAG!:: He raised an arm to fire, feeling the havoc of some of the smaller servos reacting while others refused, glitched by the pulse.

::Oh, _reboot_ your slagging self,:: Rumble snapped, and transformed one hand to grab for the gun strapped across his back and shoot towards where the bomb had come from. Why in the _Pits_ he suddenly had to play defense for the glitch-ridden Seeker, he had no idea, but on the list of things he didn't think was funny, this one ranked pretty slagging high.

The human armament opened fire in return as they roared back to life, hitting with heavy salvos. Some were aimed at Rumble. Some were aimed at the feet of the more massive Seeker. Others were decisively aimed at the energy lines behind the pair of robots...with highly volatile rounds designed to bring the fuel in those lines to flashpoint instantly, a danger the mech carrying the volatile raw energy processed just as he shut down full motor control to reboot it.

::Rumble!:: A fast data burst let the small one know the crafty organics were not only willing to destroy their own energy, but to use it against them.

::Pits!:: Rumble moved, fast, getting back behind one of Skywarp's legs -- away from the projectiles that hit shields and ricocheted into other systems -- to pound the ground and tear the supports out from under the lines to force the sudden flames further away. They weren't hot enough to slag _them_ , though it'd do horrible things to their plating, but he had a nasty hope that loosing the flame on the planet would make for unhappy natives. From his spot behind Skywarp's leg, he drew both guns then and went back to returning fire, targeting one organic after another with his lasers.

The human force was taking damage, but a vehicle toward the back slowly rumbled forward, its armor modified into parabola shaped mirrored surfaces, in hopes of redirecting the robotic weaponry back on their users. Skywarp's servos responded, and he fired off a quick burst in its direction, before ducking at the redirect. ::That's cheating!:: He readied a missile instead, at seeing that effect.

::Unmaker _take_ it, yes it's cheating!:: Rumble agreed. ::Let's see if I can drop it in a hole!:: he added, and flicked his guns back to his back to return to pounding the ground in front of Skywarp's feet his seismic waves targeted directly towards that machine.

This development was not what the humans had expected, and all fire concentrated on him when they realized they were going to lose their fancy device.

::MY FOOT!!!:: Skywarp screeched when a clinging, burning acidic bomb landed against it, having missed Rumble.

::You sound like 'Screamer,:: Rumble sent with a laugh as he kept pounding -- and finally he got the hole he wanted. An even bigger hole than he'd been _aiming_ for, actually, as several of the vehicles dropped into the rift he'd gotten. ::You good to transform?::

::Slag yes,:: Skywarp muttered, not liking the comparison to his trine lead -- though not mad enough to do anything about it; before he did so in the absence of fire caused by the sudden confusion and mayhem among the organics. He managed, his cockpit opening in invitation.

Rumble scrambled up his side and dropped into the seat, ::Let's get out of here!::

The cockpit closed, and Skywarp's jets roared to life, sending him up on a low angle to achieve the thrust he needed for breakaway speed. Like Pits was he going to stay and get shot at more, even if his hold wasn't quite full.

+++

Optimus Prime had gone in search of his frontliners, not to wake them immediately, though he knew he had enough in his own reserve tanks to do so, but for the sheer need to meditate somewhere no one else would look for him. There were ethical questions still at the root of his contemplative efforts that had to be addressed. Down in the arena, in the one most blatant reminder that all had not been well with Cybertron as Megatron first took their planet into war, perhaps he could find the answers he was seeking.

He found where the twins were in stasis, and took a seat as close as he could be to them, settling his body in a restful state for the gears and hydraulics within. What he needed was also within him, but on a more meta-physical manner. The Matrix of Leadership, entrusted to him when he had been created from the wreckage of Orion Pax, was the guide he needed now. Would the course of action he was contemplating doom their own cause, tainting it as ignobly as Megatron's rebellion had tainted all those who truly had only wanted change?

He shuttered his optics, slipping into what others would mistake for recharge, and probed at the wisdom of all the previous leaders before him for guidance.

+++

Ratchet had made it into the leaders' quarters easily...and paused to make a memory snapshot of the gruff Ironhide and Chromia pose. Those two...so in love, yet so bound to their respective leaders...never failed to amuse Ratchet in their tenderness for one another. Still, his concern was for Elita One right at the moment. If Prime was shouldering the leadership alone, with risky maneuvers on his processors, it was the medic's _duty_ to provide him with relief, for the sake of a healthy command.

Ratchet moved around them and to Elita, crouching down beside her still frame, shifting her enough to lift her so that the energon he fed her would have an easy path into her system, and then he simply waited, holding the energon for her, even as he sensed her coming out of recharge. Her optics flickered... once, twice... and her frame shifted slightly in his hold as her processor engaged. "Easy, Elita," he said quickly, letting her know exactly who had her.

Elita let herself go still again at the sound of Ratchet's voice in her audios, devoting her half-online attention to the energon flowing into her system for a few more moments, and then she opened her optics fully as her processor finished booting to full capacity. "Ratchet," she said, soft and pleased enough that he was there for a moment, and then her bondmate's absence struck her. Her helm snapped up and around to find Ratchet's optics with hers. "Optimus?"

Ratchet sighed and shook his helm. "Already working. Because he's ... Prime. Not may of us up on our feet yet." He kept his voice a little exasperated to show all was not well.

Elita made a low, soft noise at that, amused, "Of course he's already working..." Then her attention sharpened again, along with her curiosity. "What _has_ happened, that any of us are awake?"

Ratchet sat back on his lower legs, taking a deep breath. "Seems our planet decided to slow down a bit inside another system with both solar currents and radiation. One thing led to another... want the high speed?" he offered.

"That will undoubtedly be faster," Elita agreed, sitting up and turning around to face him, looking him over. The shine of very new paint over his shoulder caught her attention, imperceptible as it might be to others, and she reached out, her mouth plates drawing up worriedly. "In the databurst?"

"A minor point," Ratchet said in a very irritable tone. Even though he knew it really wasn't, not to Prime.

Elita arched an optic ridge at him, and waited for the high-speed transmission that would bring her up to date on what was going on with her planet.

He offered up the link to her, and let her have the feed of everything since Bumblebee's activation. He included the translation program, so she could understand their guests.

Elita took them both, allowing all of that information to run through her processor as she took in everything that had happened since Teletraan-1 had activated Bumblebee. There was... even more than she had expected, and she stored the translation program for later use once she reached that portion of the feed. Her optics were wide by the time she finished it, and her hand was wrapped tight around Ratchet's shoulder, holding on close. She wasn't willing to say what she was thinking, but she knew, deep in her Spark, that her mate must be near beside himself at Megatron's actions this time. It was an interesting array of forces he had brought, with none of his highest lieutenants with him -- and she was grateful to their human allies for stopping Runabout -- and yet they had been near successful. If it hadn't been for the humans, and the newly returned transport class... it hardly bore thinking of.

"You've all been busy mechs," she said, making herself smile at least a little. "And what fascinating new allies!"

"They are." Ratchet smiled a little. "Bumblebee was very adept, in all ways," he pointed out. "And then we had Skyfire to boost our conditions. With Prime to handle the Slag-Maker, we're on solid decking, but the current situation can't last much longer."

"Bumblebee wasn't the only one," Elita said, smiling at him, letting herself be just a little bit playful -- with so few awake, she could let her guard down with their dear friends. "That was quite the trick with the broadcast. You'll have to introduce me to Skyfire, since Optimus is likely to be a while, if he's waking the twins."

//What are you thinking, my love, that it's Sunstreaker you want active, and not Ironhide or Brawn, Prowl or Jazz?// she wondered -- and then that playful streak that she had had to hold down for so long struck again, and she deliberately wrapped the bond between them in quiet, muting it out to as close to the level it had been while Prime was in stasis and she was still online as she could.

Just touching it long enough to do so, she felt that curious effect of him not truly being aware at all that came from him turning inward for advice.

"I am certain Skyfire should be coming out of recharge any time now. It takes a bit to get a mech....a femme in this case...up out of stasis." Ratchet smiled at her, glad that she was alert and ready to take on some of the burden.

"I'm sure," Elita agreed, and braced herself on her heels to rise to her full height, reaching down for him. As she did, she looked past him to Ironhide and Chromia, and her Spark pulsed sharp with love and joy at seeing the two of them. She shook her helm just a little, not trying to hide her expression, and glanced at Ratchet. "He's going to spray us all with bleach if that shot gets around..."

Ratchet looked completely innocent. "As if I would ever..." The Medic smiled, though, because he knew who needed to see that image more than anyone, just to get Ironhide's circuits riled up. Jazz was always a good one for such things.

"Don't try that with me," Elita said, laughing softly as they started to walk out the door. As they moved, she asked softly, "So... what do you think of the humans?"

Ratchet paused, thinking that over. "Valiant. Entirely too at risk by what we are, due to their size and lack of protective plating."

Elita nodded, taking Ratchet's words as accurate as anything might be. "I thought as much. Yet they seem... much like us, despite that, from what I saw...?"

Ratchet nodded slowly. "Rewind studied a lot of their...Internet. He surmised good and bad, while pointing out they knew how to package their sports..." the medic offered, wry and amused.

"Of _course_ that would be what matters to Rewind," Elita smiled, shaking her helm in amusement. "Ratchet... is he doing all right, without Blaster?"

"That little guy is being a real credit to his whole class right now, Elita." Ratchet was quite proud. "Teletraan-1 is being very careful to monitor him."

"Good. Oh... speaking of which. Teletraan-1," she said, her voice shifting from conversational to the sharper pitch of command, looking up at one of the security cameras.

"Yes, Elita One?"

"Do not inform Prime that I am online. I will be doing that myself."

"Yes, Elita One."

Teletraan-1 would not ever break a direct order, and had enough emotions to wonder just what the other leader of the Army had in mind.

"You, my dear femme, are of much the same processor I was when I preempted waking you," Ratchet said, chuckling.

Elita looked sideways at their old friend and smiled wide, her optics sparkling with mischief and amusement. "Do you know how long it's been since I've gotten to surprise him?"

"In a pleasing way? I'd say the war was in its infancy." Ratchet knew Prime would be very pleased...and might overlook the breach in protocol.

"And I'd say you're right," she agreed, nodding at him. "I'm going to take advantage of it while I can -- and yes, I know you are, too."

"Let's get you back around to one of the lesser repair bays then, so I can be certain you're up to full operating ability," Ratchet said, becoming the firm medic again.

Elita gave him a long, amused look, then nodded. "All right, all right. You'll just glare until I do, so I might as well make it easy."

"It's not as if you can go wandering around; 'Bee or Rewind would fly straight to Prime."

"You do have a point there..." Elita had to admit, and headed for the repair bay with him.

+++

Optimus came up out of his meditation an undefined time later. He had to check his chronometer, and then he realized he had better go above. His gaze fell on the twins, savoring the peace they rarely had, hating that it came in the form of a necessary stasis. Soon, he would return for them. Soon, he would have his two strong warriors, and the rest of the plan would be carried out. There was simply no viable chance any other way to end this war with so few casualties.

With his decision weighed, measured, and accepted, he made his way back toward the allies. He wanted them safely away from the planet before he embarked on this part of his plan. Surely they would be out of recharge by now.

"Teletraan-1, are our guests alert?" he asked once he was back in habitable areas of the city.

"Yes, Optimus Prime," Teletraan answered, following the answer with their location. "Bumblebee is with them." 

"Thank you, Teletraan." He continued on his course, clearing the mission off his processors for the moment. He noted the signs of war's effects at every open passage, and in the outer edifices of the buildings, which made him ache with a wish to have it all over. That he would likely not see the rebuiliding never entered into it; he only wished to make it possible.

"Of course," Teletraan said softly, and dropped back into silence.

When he finally reached the room that had been used by the humans, he paused and tapped outside the entry for attention. "May I enter?"

Inside, Lennox blinked for a moment, then went to the door and laid his hand on the lowest of the controls, letting it open. "Of course. Come on in, Prime. We were just getting Bumblebee to tell us a little more about the city."

"Prime knows Iacon better than any of us, probably," Bumblebee said with complete faith. "This is where he first turned back a Decepticon force, after all."

"I did not do that alone, Bumblebee, but yes, this was the scene of my first battles for our cause," Prime said, amused by the scout.

"Everybody's got a first," Epps said, looking around at Figueroa and Lennox, who each nodded, remembering the first time they had come under heavy fire and survived it with a true victory.

Lennox left the door open in case Ratchet or Rewind decided to join them went back to the over-sized lounge he'd been sharing with half his team, settling back onto it as he looked towards Prime to see what he was willing to share.

Optimus Prime considered, then met Lennox's eyes. "You have a city that is first? Shines above the rest? Perhaps not rightly so, because there is corruptions and decay at its heart? "

"...a few," Lennox said, after thinking for a moment or two. "I think you could say that about any of our major cities, these days. Just in the US... it'd be a toss up between our Capitol, DC, and New York City. Don't start Epps on comic books or we'll be here all day. But... yeah, I think I know what you mean." He glanced towards Andropov, to see if the old spacer had anything he wanted to add.

Prime followed his gaze, and Andropov nodded. "Change the name, make them new again; doesn't change what is at the heart of them."

"That is Iacon City. This is where the Senate met. This is where the Overlord presided. Policy from this city was supposed to be a strong suggestion to other city-states on how to behave. To this day, I have no idea if Megatron spoke the truth on Iacon manipulating the situation between Tarn and Vos or if it was merely another of his infinite deceptions. But I do know, that despite housing the elements of our society that were falling into decay, the city itself shone. What space imports still came, came here. All trade flowed through Iacon. All information came through Iacon, even if we were not the city of science like some others were."

Lennox nodded, trying to picture that -- it wasn't really all that hard, not with everything 'Bee had already told them, and he tucked the names of those cities into the back of his mind to ask questions about later.

"History of the beginning of the war is unclear for many sources, but I know for certain that the Decepticons nearly took Iacon for a time, early on." Prime watched Bee's optics go wide, but stayed focused on Lennox. "By all rights, that should have ended the war fairly quickly. The largest reserves were here. And Megatron had managed to infiltrate the city from the inside, without much risk to his forces." Prime paused, aware that Bumblebee was rapt by the tale. "In those days, Megatron had many sympathizers, and some key personnel in the city had been swayed by him in such a way as to let him stage his mechs in place. But... it was not to be." Optimus permitted himself a smiled behind the battlemask; it had cost so much, and yet the expression of Megatron's faceplates on being resisted and then ousted had been something to savor. "The Autobots rallied to preserve their shining city, and under new leadership, were able to wrest it back. We've never let her go in the vorns since that." 

The humans were all listening to the story but Epps was the kind who was always looking around, and Andropov had never shaken his healthy dose of paranoia. They both happened to glance toward motion in the doorway and got to see something unusual.

There was a new figure coming down the hall -- about halfway in height between Bumblebee and Optimus -- but built very... _very_ differently. Where on all of the mechs they had seen there were hard, sharp lines and angles... the form in their eyes was all smooth, gently formed curves barring the spikes at either side of her head, cast in shades of white and a deep pink. The Autobot symbol shone red on the newcomer's chest, and the optics were a deep, soft blue. One that sparkled with amusement as one finger came up to press against lips that were as pursed and shaped as any woman's as the newcomer came closer, moving very silently up behind Prime's seat.

Andropov was bemused, putting aside the instinct she might be an assassin for the fact that she seemed entirely too womanly to be meaning anything beyond mischief. Epps on the other hand was noticing that same womanliness with an active amount of awe and shock at such beauty in one package, with so much grace, and yet she was still metal. The concept of a girl robot just had not sunk into the realm of possibilities -- though it was certainly making fast impact.

Elita saw the two men notice her and keep silent, and she smiled a joyful 'thank-you' as she settled just outside of her mate's sensor range and waited for the end of his words. She couldn't help but thrill for his voice, for the way he told the story of their desperate holding on to Iacon, and as he finished, she spoke up, her voice firm despite the way he could wreak havoc on her vocalizer. "And we never will."

Optimus heard her voice, and all his energies flared out, seeking her as he turned, the battlemask falling away as he took in the fact she was really, truly there and aware. His entire frame softened, it seemed, to see her, and he rose to his feet to move closer to her, wanting to hold her and greet her fully. Lennox, watching the big mech who had hit so many of his personal buttons for what a commander should be, was nearly bowled over, seeing himself in the way the giant mech reacted, so much like how he reacted to his own wife back home.

"Elita," he murmured, just before he took one of her hands, and slid the other around the small of her back. He was taller, but it was nothing to bend his head and shift just so to find her lips for a kiss.

"Optimus," she whispered as she rose up on the very tips of her feet, her fingers lacing through his as her hand went up to the back of his helm, and then his lips were on hers and she pressed tight into him, her energies wrapping around his as she held him close, kissing deeper into his mouth, her optics falling back offline at the pleasure of being in his arms. ::Mmmm...:: she purred across their link, his hand spread low on her back struts and holding her in tight against him so perfectly.

Optimus Prime had lost nothing of his love and devotion for her in the long war. So often, they had been forced to serve apart from one another, bound only by the link in their Sparks. That made moments like this a treasure to hold onto, and guests or no guests, he was not letting go for a long moment, savoring the feel of her, and the communion of their kiss.

Lennox looked away after a moment, back at Epps, who just gave him a look of 'that is so you'. He rolled his eyes at his second, mouthing 'whatever', and looked over at Seaton, trying to see what their pilot thought of this. There was just flat no doubt that _that_ was a woman, or whatever word the Cybertronians might use... and the idea that they had sexes -- that was breaking the back of his brain. But he had to admit that Epps wasn't wrong, no matter that he'd smarted off in return.

Elita shifted closer yet to him, taking advantage of that none of the mechs she had to lead were around to be only his femme, kissing him until he shifted in her hold.

Seaton gave Lennox a shrug of perplexed amusement. Gender in robots was the stuff of bad sci-fi plots. He glanced over and saw Bumblebee watching with outright adoration for both of them, and filed away a piece in his head that the hero-worship extended to whomever this pink robot was.

Optimus slowly sighed, a rumble of contentment through his intakes, and broke the kiss ever so slowly. His optics glowed with the soft hue of eternal love, before he shifted the battlemask back into place to face the humans. "Forgive me, my friends. Allow me to introduce my co-commander and..." He paused, searching for the correct word, but female mate was translating with hints of being property. If anything, Elita owned him, not the other way around. "...my bonded mate, Elita One."

Elita smiled, bright and pleased at the glow of his optics, and then glanced at each of the men in turn, smiling for them, as well. "I'm glad to meet all of you. Thank you, for helping us. And thank you, Lieutenant Colonel Andropov, Sergeant Epps, for letting me surprise my bondmate... I get to so rarely. And it's good to see you, Bumblebee. I heard you've been doing wonderfully."

Bumblebee's faceplates warmed with his embarrassment at being praised. "I try, Elita One," he said softly.

"Nothing but a thing. I think Sarah's done that once or twice to Lennox here," Epps said in a lazy rumble, still all too aware of that sensual grace being transposed onto a living piece of metal that could squash him flat. It made his libido do strange things.

"It was well worth it, to see such a human thing in your mate," Andropov said, amused when Optimus Prime also took on a warmer tone in his face.

Elita laughed, soft and low and warm, and nodded at Andropov. "I... do believe I can understand that. It is always pleasant to see the best of ourselves in another species you have found. "'Sarah'?" she asked, turning her attention towards Lennox. "That is your -- your word is 'wife's'... name?"

Lennox nodded, staring up those curves to her face. He looked into her optics, and he wasn't sure if it was Optimus's deep devotion to her, or something he saw there, but he decided she was well worth listening to as well. "Yes ma'am. Mother of my baby girl."

"His only," the rest of the team chorused, grinning, even Seaton.

Optimus felt a pang; there would be much joy if he could speak of offspring, the way Lennox must have done to his team. Elita's Spark twisted as well, and her fingers tightened on her mate's hand, hard, as she nodded. "I will look forward to meeting her, then. It has been... an age," she said after finding a roughly equivalent phrase, "since there were new Sparks here. You are well blessed."

"And we'd like to keep them safe, which means working out a way to help you guys ...and gals...fix your problem." Lennox said, slipping back to soldier from dad and husband.

"Yes...and as you saw for yourselves, in the battle, that will not be an easy thing, but I have pledged to keep your world as safe as I possibly can," Optimus promised. "I believe that if Skyfire is willing to return all of you home, and possibly find more energy for us, I will also send Bumblebee, this time, as our forward scout and Ambassador."

"ME?!" Bumblebee squeaked.

Elita arched an optic ridge in Bumblebee's direction, asking silently why he thought he shouldn't, and nodded to Lennox. "We will do everything we can, to keep your people safe." //But that's not why you want them off Cybertron, beloved... what are you planning?// she wondered.

"We believe that." Seaton spoke for the rest of them as he shifted a little. "And this whole team is intent on making our people know that."

"I like the idea of taking the little guy back with us," Andropov said, poking a little humor that way. "Perhaps he will not be consumed by baseball."

"Yo, I enjoyed talking sports with Rewind." Epps really had, despite the fact Rewind had every sport he could think of in his head now.

"I'm sure he has enjoyed it just as much," Elita said, nodding. "It will be interesting once we need his abilities, to see how many of us he completely confuses by speaking entirely in your sports idioms."

Optimus smiled. "I have gathered that 'touchdown', 'home run', and 'goal' are all means of scoring points, as he has referred to his hit on Megatron by all three terms."

Elita looked sideways at him, her mouth curving in a slow, lazy smirk. "And well he ought to. I'd want to tell the Slag-Maker just who knocked him spinning, if I didn't know him so well."

Optimus laughed, softly, but sadly. "It would be quite fitting for him to know the source. Perhaps that is best told to Starscream at an opportune moment?"

Bumblebee laughed outright at that, forgetting his own worry over this whole ambassadorial thing. "Oh that glitch-taken flier would so turn on Megatron right then and there for that kind of insult!"

Elita's optics sparkled with laughter, and she nodded. "So we keep it to use at some moment we need Starscream to do just that... and make sure Steeljaw stays close to Rewind for a while afterwards."

"Indeed," Optimus said, though he prayed, with all his Spark, that the war's end, and Megatron's deactivation, were within reach. He turned open a comm band that was politely public, and reached out to Skyfire. ::My friend, are you alert? I will move us to the outer court on the upper level, if you are, so we may discuss plans.::

After a moment, Skyfire answered, his send just a trifle fuzzed for a moment, as though he had just come out of recharge. ::Yes, I am alert. And I will join you there.::

Optimus Prime looked at their allies, inclining his head a little. "If we can all move up to the courtyard, Skyfire will join us. I prefer not to have to ask him to be in Iacon's inner areas, as the city did not truly meet the needs of our transport class. I'll be honored to give anyone a ride if they wish it."

"I will too...want me to assemble the others too, Prime?" Bumblebee asked, his words a little shy and hesitant as he realized he was the line officer present, and Rewind would definitely want to be included, while Ratchet should be.

Elita smiled at Bumblebee's question, contentedly taking it as proof that he was the right choice for the job on Earth, and shifted her weight to turn towards the courtyard, listening for the answers.

Lennox had seen that moment of vicious pleasure at the mention of 'Starscream' and what his reactions might be... and it didn't take but a few moments' thought to remember enough of Rewind's stories to know why. He was willing to bet that they were right -- not that he thought he could get anyone to take it. "I don't see any reason not to, and... thanks for the offer. You guys move a lot faster than we do. "

"Please do, Bumblebee." Optimus moved out of the rec room...alternative modes were for corridors and the outside...and took on his transformation, calling the trailer to him.

Seaton stared about as hard as Andropov did as they really had to pay attention to the fact that this strange alien was able to seemingly ignore the laws of conservation, even as Epps was grabbing for the gear with help from Figueroa.

"How can you make mass appear?" Seaton asked, once he closed his mouth from awe.

Elita blinked her optics at the question, making a mildly curious noise, but she wasn't going to step in on that question -- it wasn't one of her better abilities, in any case.

Lennox turned around to look at Seaton, then looked _back_ at the cab and trailer... and it hit him, too. That... he'd seen the trailer and guns during the fight, but he hadn't paid attention, since they'd seen the trailer when they were moving Skyfire's load. But Seaton was right. That had just come out of _nowhere_.

Epps glanced over, then shrugged. They'd all made comment about how Rewind was human sized and then down an over-sized cassette that one of them could carry with both hands, but anyone who had lifted the symbiont could feel the mass was still there. This was just some other form of their science as far as the tech sergeant was concerned.

Bumblebee half-listened, but he was concentrating on getting Rewind and Ratchet on the move.

"Your people do not have _nth_ space storage?" Optimus asked, cycling into the human database Teletraan-1 was building to see for himself. "I cannot make mass 'appear', but all of us have a matrix connection to shift unneeded mass away from this dimension into the holding dimension."

"That...sounds like something in the movies," Seaton said.

Lennox snorted, looking over at Seaton with a wry, dark grin on his face. "Yeah, it does... but what else is new. I'm no science geek, maybe that's it, but... we saw Skywarp _teleporting_. That's the one that freaks me out the most, I think..."

"Thankfully," Elita said, "Skywarp's warp generators are exceptionally rare."

"Rare, power-intensive, and complicated," Prime added. "Skywarp often seems far less intelligent than his trine-mates, but Silverbolt was of the opinion that the teleportation computations take more processor space than is honestly healthy for anyone to give up." He fought down the surge of quiet grief for the loss of those few Seekers who had chosen the Autobot cause. They had all slowly been hunted by their class-mates, or deactivated in heroic efforts for the Autobot armies at large.

"Trine-mates?" Andropov queried as he and the rest climbed into the open trailer that had configured jumpseats on one side and a gear rack on the other.

"Seekers, more than any other class, tend to bond in groups, normally three, but sometimes more," Bumblebee offered, even as he decided to take advantage of the space at the end of the trailer and hitch a ride.

Optimus opened a cab door invitingly to his mate...if she wanted to take advantage of a free ride and save energy that way.

"That," Elita agreed, as she came around and stepped up into the cab, Her fingers wrapped lightly around a bar to ease the move, and then she settled down into his seat with a quiet purr of her engines, reaching out to help tug the door closed again.

Lennox settled into one of the jump seats, shaking his head a little. "When you say 'bond' about the Seekers, does it mean the same thing as you and Elita, Prime?"

From what he'd seen of the Decepticons, he had a hard time envisioning a group of them being as devoted to each other as Prime and Elita so obviously were.

Optimus weighed his answer carefully by researching the human database again. "It can be, but no, not entirely. After all, rumor has it that Thundercracker and Skywarp are spark-bonded, within their trine. But it is, at the base level, an instinctive reaction and awareness of one another that goes beyond a simple data connection, as opposed to a temporary link or an eternal one," he finally said for reply.

"So... kinda-sorta. Alright. I guess that makes sense," Lennox said, thinking through it. "I guess, given all of the ways you guys can probably communicate, that we wouldn't really have the kind of terms you'd need to describe this stuff accurately..."

"We both have much learning to do about one another's species, yes," Optimus agreed.

"It's all cool, so long as that learning isn't by force," Epps muttered, sitting next to Lennox. "So we need to kick ass on your Decepticons to keep that from happening."

"Yes!" Bumblebee agreed fervently.

Skyfire reached the courtyard decking in short order, where he shifted into his mech form and settled down on his aft to wait -- it seemed to be less imposing to the humans when he was seated, and he did not want to distress them.

Ratchet reached him first, as Bumblebee and Rewind had quartered the humans protectively deep in the city. "Greetings, Skyfire."

"Greeting, Ratchet. You look... much better," Skyfire said, smiling with relief. "I am glad."

Ratchet made a grumbling noise. "Should have seen it coming. Megatron hates losing."

"I think that most do," Skyfire said, unable not to think of Starscream's past tirades at any point when his whims had been balked, "but I find it exceptionally difficult to care about his dislike, when his intentions are so... horrific."

Ratchet smiled at that, and nodded. "You're a good mech. Prime will argue that Megatron got subverted along the way, but I think it was there the whole while. Some mechs just can't break their class-level programing."

Skyfire's optics narrowed, just slightly, and his spinal struts stiffened the same degree. "And sometimes no-one _wants_ you to be more than your class is 'supposed' to be..."

Ratchet noted the stiffening and moved over, close enough to hold his hand out in offer of physical contact. "That too, and that's part of why Prime will admit things were sour before, even if he does hold the Matrix and all that implies," the medic said softly.

Skyfire settled back into relaxation at that, reaching his hand to Ratchet's in an easy touch, letting go of the tension as swiftly as it had struck him. "I have been gone for... quite some time. But yes, things were far from perfect here long before this war. I am... more than glad, that the Prime now is someone that I will be proud to follow."

Ratchet let out a sigh of relief. "Glad to hear it, Skyfire. He refuses to compel mechs to follow our way, and that cost us a lot of neutrals in the early days.... but he's right."

"Compulsion will never bring real peace, only tyrannical oppression," Skyfire said softly, fingers tightening just a little. "So of course he is right."

Ratchet paused, and then looked the transport class mech over. When he spoke, his tone was respectful. "I think we are very lucky to know you," he said, just before the sound of Optimus's engines hit their audio sensors.

"Me?" Skyfire asked, blinking his optics bewilderedly.

"Yes, you," Ratchet said with affectionate exasperation; he knew that tone far too well from a few good friends, up to and including his beloved Prime.

"If you say so," Skyfire said, and then sat up a little more to look and see Prime approaching, smiling at him.

Ratchet looked, smiling a little at the sight of Elita One in the cab. He had gotten Teletraan-1 to feed him that entire scene in the rec room, and enjoyed every moment of it.

Optimus pulled up, making a turnabout, so that his passengers could disembark politely in front of Ratchet and Skyfire...which Bumblebee began just as Rewind came racing up from where he'd been.

"Hey 'wind. Blaster looked pretty polished when I dropped by," Bumblebee offered to his pal, knowing the little guy had decided Blaster needed some attention.

"Well, yeah, of course he does, what else was I gonna do in a bye week?" Rewind said, nodding. "Hey Epps, hey guys," he added, waving up into the trailer at the humans that were coming off. "Everything cool?"

"Yeah, I think so," Epps said, nodding before he turned his eyes Skyfire's way. "Hey, big guy. You look all shined up."

"Prime does excellent work," Skyfire agreed, smiling at Epps. "Thank you."

Elita stepped out of Prime's cab and walked towards the crowd, smiling down at Rewind. "Hello, Rewind... _nice_ shot."

"Elita!" Rewind grinned at her, even as Prime, who had detached his trailer so he could go ahead and transform, felt his faceplates heat with Skyfire's praise. "I knocked it out of the park!" he crowed.

Seaton had to grin at Andropov; the pair of them had gotten to listen to the first hand bragging when the shot happened. The Russian nodded and smiled back.

"I think the C.O. here has plans in mind," Lennox offered up, to get his people to focus.

"Indeed, Captain Lennox," Optimus told them, standing where all could see him.

"If I understand that right, yes, you certainly did!" Elita agreed, leaning down just enough to wrap her fingers around his shoulder before she turned her attention to her mate, noticing the heated plates with an affectionately amused smile.

All eyes turned to Prime then, waiting to hear what he had to say.

"We all know that this war cannot be allowed to spread to a second planet. Because of this, I have decided that we must maintain communications with our new allies, through the Captain and his team and an ambassador from our people." Prime took in the ones present, letting each one have the moment to consider his words.

Bumblebee kind of scuffed his peds a little, still unsure of this, while Rewind debated a chance to go back to Earth...or staying near his siblings and link-partner. Ratchet nodded, understanding the needs here.

Elita nodded, in complete agreement with her mate on that point. Skywarp had already caused enough trouble; they could not let it become worse. Bumblebee's foot-scuffing made her smile just a little, but she was already sure of him.

Skyfire nodded. "That seems wise to me, as well, and of course I will return them home. I... would not want the task of speaking for you, however." He looked to Prime, knowing that the other mech, at least, would understand why. It was not that he worried about intimidating the humans, though that was a factor. No... it was the bond pulsing in the back of his processor that was his largest reason for not wishing that kind of a role.

Optimus Prime favored him with a kind shine of his optics. "Thank you, but I already had an ambassador chosen, and I believe Elita One is in full accord with my choice." He turned to view his scout, who squirmed a little more. "Bumblebee, will you accept this mission?"

The bright yellow mech nodded, slowly, despite the fears inside. No one listened all that much to him; he was a sparkling still compared to a lot of the ones he respected and admired. At the same time, though, he was abundantly curious about the new world. "I'll do my best, Prime, I promise you!"

Skyfire dipped his helm gratefully, and then looked to Bumblebee with a smile of his own. He hadn't seen all that much of the younger mech, but he liked what he had seen. "That is all anyone can do, I think..."

::He'll do all of us proud,:: Optimus sent very privately to his mate.

"Better bring back something for Jazz, because he's going to be so envious of your trip," Ratchet reminded the youngster. 

"Rewind, I leave the choice to you for assisting Bumblebee, or staying here to help Teletraan-1 run the defenses."

"All dugout shenanigans aside, Prime, I kinda want to stay near the home team," Rewind admitted.

::Of course he will,:: Elita agreed, watching as Bumblebee lit up at the thought of being able to surprise his commander.

"We'll miss you, buddy," Epps said as he moved enough to smack Rewind lightly on the shoulder, "but we get it."

"I'll come back down when we kick Megatron's aft back into the Pits he crawled out of!" Rewind promised. "Blaster's going to love the music down there!"

"Spare us," Ratchet muttered under his breath.

Lennox nodded to all the contingencies so far, but he was curious. Something in the planning of their trip back to Earth was leaving him thinking he was missing a piece of the action.

"Now, Ratchet," Elita murmured just as softly, even though she smiled at him in amusement. Blaster _was_ going to love the music on Earth... which was going to mean that the rest of them were going to hear quite a lot of it.

Ratchet didn't even bother to retract or look chastised. It was the truth, and he called it like he saw it. 

Optimus made a small noise, drawing everyone's attention again. "Ratchet, you will be in charge of monitoring and diverting the energy that is being harvested to personnel. Skyfire, I have the utmost faith in you to protect your passengers, and ask that you remain there, studying the new world and its people until further notice. Captain Lennox, I have instructed Teletraan-1 to prepare a defense tutorial for your people bearing out the structural weaknesses of the various Decepticon classes."

"...that'll be a huge help," Lennox said. "Rewind already told us a lot, but the more we can take back to help, the better off we'll be."

"If your people would like to dispose of more of the hazardous material, we would gladly process it for ourselves," Ratchet pointed out so that Prime would not have to sound mercenary by asking for something after offering a very necessary information cache.

"Once this war's over, I bet our scientists can help yours figure out how not to make the waste," Bumblebee said in turn.

"Given how huge a problem it is for us," Seaton said, "I can't see any reason for us _not_ to hand it off to you -- which means I'm sure some pencil-pusher will come up with one, but... we got one batch. Surely we can do it again."

"You bet your ass we will," Epps said on top of Figueroa chiming in with "Stupid government stiffs aren't getting in _our way_!"

Optimus looked gratefully at them. "I believe that covers what is necessary then. Skyfire, do you need fueling?" He knew where a reserve was, saved for Omega Supreme.

"I wouldn't say no to it, though I could make it back to Earth as I am," Skyfire said, shifting both shoulders in a small shrug.

"Rewind will take you to where the fuel is," Optimus told him, knowing the intelligence symbiont had access to that data.

"Line drive up the middle!" Rewind spouted off, walking over to the big guy. He and Skyfire took off, then Lennox organized his team into prepping for space again, while Bumblebee got all the data he needed for the exchange. That left Prime to return to his own affairs, and allowed Elita One and Ratchet to be curious over just what Optimus had hit upon as the next move in this Primus-damned war.

`~`~`~`~`


End file.
